LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


38-3 

• 

L 


Of  this  book  there  have  been  printed 
but  jfo  copies  from  type. 


INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


BY    THE    SAME    AUTHOR. 


DAYS  AND  DREAMS $1.25 

MOODS  AND  MEMORIES  .....  2.00 
RED  LEAVES  AND  ROSES  .  .  .  .1.25 
POEMS  OF  NATURE  AND  LOVE  .  .  .  1.50 
INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL  .  .  .  1.50 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


INTIMATIONS  OF  THE 
BEAUTIFUL 

AND 

POEMS 


BY 

MADISON   CAWEIN 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW   YORK  LONDON 

27  West  Twenty-third  Street  24  Bedford  Street,  Strand 

®ty  ftaiehtrbothw  $x£8g 
1894 


COPYRIGHT,  1894 

BY 
MADISON  CAWEIN 


Printed  and  Bound  by 

Ube  ftnicfeerbocfeer  press,  flew 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


TO 
THE  AUTHOR    OF 

GOD  IN   HIS  WORLD 

WITH 
PROFOUND  ADMIRATION 


1 57238 


They  took  him  into  confidence — each  oak 
Of  the  far  forest :  and  all  day  he  sat 
Hearing  of  Nature  from  an  autocrat, 

An  oak — so  old,  Dodona  might  have  spoke 

Its  infant  oracles  through  it — that,  part 
Of  the  oracular  beauty  of  the  gods, 

Yet  irresponsible,  down  in  its  heart 
Still  felt  the  rapture  of  their  periods. 

They  took  him  into  confidence — the  skies : 
And  all  night  long  he  lay  beneath  one  star, 
Hearing  of  God    .     .    .     One  that  was  chorister 

At  Earth's  first  morning  ;  that  beheld  fierce  eyes 

Of  rebel  angels,  and  the  birth  of  Hell ; 
Whom  God  set  over  Eden  and  o'er  them, 

The  two,  as  destiny  ;  that  did  foretell 
How  Christ  lay  born  at  far-off  Bethlehem. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL  i 

KNOWLEDGE  AND  BEAUTY    .        .  .        .        .71 

ELEUSINIAN  .        .        .        .        .  .        .        .72 

CHRYSELEPHANTINE      .        .        ...        .        .        .      74 

SIBYLLINE     .        .        .        .        .        ...        .76 

LETHE 78 

LOTUS 81 

MOLY 84 

POPPY  AND  MANDRAGORA 86 

NIGHTSHADE         .        .        .        .        •        .        .        .      90 
ROSEMARY    .        .        .        .        ...        .        .92 

AT  TWILIGHT 94 

DAY  AND  NIGHT  .....        .        .        .95 

REVELATION         .        . 96 

SYMBOLIC      .........      97 

ARGONAUTS  .        .        .    • 98 

THE  KNIGHT-ERRANT  .  100 


VI  CONTENTS. 


IN  SHADOW  .........  I03 

LEGENDARY  .........  105 

THE  MILL  WATER       .......  108 

EIDOLONS      .........  m 

UNDER  DARK  SKIES     .......  113 

THE  SECRET         ........  115 

PHANTOMS    .        .        .        ......  117 

THREE  BIRDS        ........  119 

IDENTITIES    .........  120 

A  VISION       .........  122 

THE  NORMAN  KNIGHT          ......  126 

THE  SALAMANDER        .......  128 

THE  ROSICRUCIAN        .....        .        .  138 

ARABAH        .........  141 

NORTH  BEACH,  FLORIDA      .        .        ...        .  143 

THE  WATCHER     ........  145 

ANALOGIES    .........  146 

IMITATED  FROM  OSSIAN        .        .        .        .        .        .148 

THE  BATTLE         ........  153 

THE  MESSAGE       ........  155 

MOSBY  AT  HAMILTON  .......  157 

IN  HOSPITAL         ........  159 

IN  SILHOUETTE     ........  160 

ASSUMPTION  .........  162 

CARA  MIA     .........  163 


CONTENTS.  Vll 

PAGE 

ESOTERIC      .        .        .        .        .        .        ,        .        .  165 

MNEMONICS 168 

THE  NAIAD  .               .        .        .       .       .        .        .  170 

THE  RED-BIRD     .        . 172 

THE  STORM 174 

MARIE 177 

LINES  TO  M.         ..."...  178 

CIRCE 180 

THE  PAPHIAN  VENUS 183 

METAMORPHOSIS  .        . 187 

BEFORE  THE  TEMPLE    .        .        .        .        .        .        .188 

THE  DEAD  FAUN          .                .        .        .        .        .  igo 

APOLLO         .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .  192 

THE  FEUD 196 

THE  RAID 199 

DEAD  MAN'S  RUN 201 

THE  MOONSHINER 204 


INTIMATIONS   OF   THE    BEAUTIFUL. 

A   THOUGHT,  to  lift  me  up  to  those 
Sweet  wildflowers  of  the  pensive  woods  ; 
The  lofty,  lowly  attitudes 
Of  bluet  and  of  bramble-rose  : 

To  lift  me  where  the  mind  may  reach 
The  lessons  that  their  beauties  teach. 

A  dream,  to  lead  my  spirit  on 

In  sounds  of  fairy  shawms  and  flutes, 
And  all  mysterious  attributes 

Of  skies  of  dusk  and  skies  of  dawn  : 
To  lead  me,  like  the  dreamy  brooks, 
Past  all  the  knowledge  of  the  books. 

A  song,  to  make  my  heart  a  guest 
Of  happiness  whose  soul  is  love  ; 
One  with  the  life  that  knoweth  of 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

But  song  that  turneth  toil  to  rest  : 
To  make  me  cousin  to  the  birds, 
Whose  music  needs  not  wisdom's  words. 


I  feel  thee, — as  one  feels  a  flower's, 
A  dead  flower's,  fragrance  in  a  room, — 
A  dim,  gray  grief  that  haunts  the  hours 
With  sad  perfume. 

Thou  charm'st  me, — as  a  ghostly  lily 
Might  charm  a  garden's  withered  place, — 
With  the  pale  pathos  and  the  chilly 
Hush  of  thy  face. 

I  hearken  in  thy  fogs  ;  I  hearken 
Ere,  like  the  ghastly  ghost  of  Night, 
With  immaterial  limbs  they  darken 
The  day  with  white. 

With  wrecks  of  rain  and  mad  winds,  heaping 
Red  ruins  of  riven  rose  and  leaf, 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Make  glad  my  heart,  O  Autumn,  sweeping 
The  joy  with  grief. 

n. 

The  gods  of  Greece  are  mine  once  more  ! 

The  old  philosophies  again  ! 
For  I  have  drunk  the  hellebore 

Of  dreams,  and  dreams  have  made  me  san< 
The  wine  of  dreams  !  that  doth  unfold 

My  other  self, — 'mid  shadowy  shrines 
Of  myths  which  marble  held  of  old, 
Part  of  the  Age  of  Bronze  or  Gold, — 

That  lives  a  pagan  'mid  the  pines. 

Dead  myths,  to  whom  such  dreams  belong  ! 

O  beautiful  philosophies 
Of  Nature  !  crystallized  in  song 

And  marble,  peopling  lost  seas, 
Lost  forests  and  the  star-lost  vast, 

Grant  me  the  childlike  faith  that  clung, — 
Through  loveliness  that  could  not  last, — 
To  Heaven  in  the  pagan  past, 

Calling  for  God  with  infant  tongue  ! 


4        INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

III. 

Idea,  O  god  of  Plato  !  one 

With  beauty,  justice,  truth  and  love  : 
Who,  type  by  type,  the  world  begun 

From  an  ideal  world  above  ! 
Reason,  who  into  Nature  wrought 

Your  real  entities, — which  are 

Ideas, — giving  to  our  star 
Their  beauty  through  reflected  thought ; 

The  reminiscences,  that  flame 

Momental  through  the  mind  of  man, 

Of  things  his  memory  cannot  name 

Lost  things  his  knowledge  cannot  scan, 

Hints  of  past  periods,  are  not  these  ? 
His  soul  hath  lived  since  it  had  birth 
From  God   .    .    .  Yea,  who  shall  name  the  Earth 

More  ancient  than  himself  who  sees  ? 

IV. 

Beside  us,  and  yet  far  above, 

She  leads  us  to  no  base  renown — 
The  Ideal,  with  her  sun-white  crown, 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.          5 

And  starry  raiment  of  her  love  : 
She  leads  us  by  ascending  ways 

Of  Nature  to  her  purposed  ends, 
Who  in  the  difficult,  dark  days 

Of  trial  with  her  smile  defends. 

Beyond  the  years,  that  blindly  grope, 

To  climb  with  her,  from  year  to  year, 

To  some  exalted  atmosphere, 
Were  more  than  earthly  joy  and  hope  ! 
Though  in  that  atmosphere  we  find 

Not  her — her  influence,  pointing  to 
New  elevations  of  the  mind 

By  some  superior  avenue. 

v. 

The  climbing-cricket  in  the  dusk 
Moves  wings  of  moony  gossamer  ; 
Its  vague,  vibrating  note  I  hear 

Among  the  boughs  of  dew  and  musk, 

Whence,  rustling  with  a  mellow  thud, 

The  ripe  quince  falls.    Low,  deep  and  clear, 

The  west  is  bound  with  burning  blood. 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

The  slanting  bats  beneath  the  moon, — 
A  dark  disk  edged  with  glittering  white, — 
Spin  loops  of  intertangled  night  : 

An  owl  wakes,  hooting  over  soon, 

Within  the  forest  far  away  : 

And  now  the  heaven  fills,  light  by  light, 

And  all  the  blood-red  west  grows  gray. 

I  hear  no  sound  of  wind  or  wave  ; 
No  sob  or  song,  except  the  slow 
Leaf-cricket's  flute-soft  tremolo, 

Among  wet  walks  grown  gray  and  grave. — 

In  raiment  mists  of  silver  sear, 

With  strange,  pale  eyes  thou  comest,  O 

Thou  spirit  of  the  waning  year  ! 

VI. 

The  hills  are  full  of  prophecies 
And  ancient  voices  of  the  dead  ; 

Of  hidden  shapes  that  no  one  sees, 

Pale,  visionary  presences, 

That  speak  the  things  no  tongue  hath  said, 
No  mind  hath  thought,  no  eye  hath  read. 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

The  streams  are  full  of  oracles, 
And  momentary  whisperings  ; 

An  immaterial  beauty  swells 

Its  breezy  silver  o'er  the  shells 

With  wordless  speech  that  sings  and  sings 
The  present  life  of  unknown  things. 

No  indeterminable  thought  is  theirs, 

The  stars,  the  sunsets  and  the  flowers  ; 
Whose  inexpressible  speech  declares 
Th'  immortal  Beautiful,  who  shares 
This  mortal  riddle  that  is  ours, 
Beyond  the  forward  flying  hours. 


VII. 


The  hornet  stings  the  garnet  grape, 

Whose  hull  splits  with  the  honeyed  heat  ;- 
Fall  hears  the  long  loud  locust  beat 

Its  song  out,  where,  a  girl-like  shape, 

She  watches  through  the  wine-press'  crust 
Sweet  trickle  of  the  purple  must. 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

The  bee  clings  to  the  scarlet  peach, 
That  thrusts  a  dryad's  cheek  between 
The  leaves  of  golden  gray  and  green  ; — 

Fall  walks  where  orchard  branches  reach 
Abundance  to  her  hands,  or  drop 
Their  ripeness  down  to  make  her  stop. 

The  bitter-sweet  and  sassafras 

Hang  yellow  seeds  and  crimson-black 
Along  the  rails,  that  ramble  back 

Among  the  corn  where  she  must  pass  ; 
Where,  on  her  hair,  a  golden  haze 
Showers  the  pollen  of  the  maize. 

Not  till  'mid  sad,  chill  scents  all  day 
The  green  leaf-cricket  lisps  its  tune, 
And  underneath  the  hunter's-moon 

The  oxen  plod  through  clinging  clay, 
Or  when  beyond  the  dripping  pane 
The  night  sets  in  with  whirling  rain  : 

Not  till  ripe  walnuts  spill  their  spice    . 
Of  frost-nipped  nuts  down,  and  the  oak 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.         \ 

Pelts  with  brown  acorns,  stroke  on  stroke, 
The  creek  which  slides  through  hints  of  ice  ; 
And  in  the  lane  the  wagon  pulls, 
Crunching,  through  thick-strewn  hickory  hulls 

Not  till  through  frosty  fogs,  which  hold 
Wet  mornings  with  their  phantom  night, 
Like  torches  glimmering  through  the  white, 

The  woods  burn  crimson  blurs  and  gold, 
And  through  the  mist  come  muffled  sounds 
Of  hunting-horns  and  baying  hounds  : 

Shall  I  on  hills,  where  looming  pines 
Against  vermilion  sunsets  stand —    . 
Black  ruins  in  a  blood-red  land — 

In  wrecks  of  sumach  and  wild  vines, 
Go  seek  her,  where  she  lies  asleep, 
Her  dark,  sad  eyes  too  tired  to  weep. 

VIII. 

It  holds  and  beckons  in  the  streams  ; 
It  lures  and  touches  us  in  all 
The  flowers  of  the  golden  fall — 


IO       INTIMATIONS  OF    THE   BEAUTIFUL. 

The  mystic  essence  of  our  dreams  : 
A  nymph  blows  bubbling  music  where 

Faint  water  ripples  down  the  rocks  ; 

A  faun  goes  dancing  hoiden  locks, 
And  piping  some  Pandean  air, 
Through  trees  the  instant  wind  shakes  bare. 

Our  dreams  are  never  otherwise 

Than  real  if  they  hold  us  so  ; 

We  in  some  other  life  shall  know 
Them  parts  of  it  and  recognize 
Them  as  ideal  substance,  whence 

The  actual  is— (as  flowers  and  trees, 

From  color  sources  no  one  sees, 
Draw  dyes,  the  substance  of  a  sense) — 
Material  with  intelligence. 


IX. 


Once  more  I  watch  the  hills  take  fire 
In  dawn  ;  and  shaggy  spine  by  spine, 
Flush  like  dark  tyrants  o'er  their  wine, 

Who  grasp  the  sword  and  smite  the  lyre, 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       II 

And  carve  the  world  to  their  desire  ; 

While  red  as  blocks  where  kingdoms  bleed, 
The  rocks  trail  savage  vine  and  weed. 

To  walls  of  gold,  Enchantment  built, 

Again  my  fancy  bids  me  go — 

Through  woods,  bewitched  with  fire,  that  blow 
Wild  horns  of  tournament  and  tilt — 
A  fairy  prince,  whose  spear  hath  spilt 

No  blood  but  in  a  shadow-world, 

While  at  the  real  his  gauge  was  hurled. 

What  far,  aeolian  echoes  lead 

My  longing  ? — as  a  voice  might  wake 
A  lost  child  from  deep  sleep  and  take, 

With  music  of  a  magic  reed, 

Him  home  where  love  shall  give  him  heed  : — 
What  echoes,  blown  from  lands  that  lie 
Melodious  'neath  no  mortal  sky  ? 

x. 

The  fire,  to  which  the  Magi  prayed, 
The  Aztecs  sacrificed  and  kneeled, 


12       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Whose  ceremonies  now  are  sealed, 
Whose  priests  are  dust,  whose  people  weighed, 

Since  God  permitted  such,  should  man, — 
All  ignorant  of  heavenly  ends, — 

Despise  the  means,  since  Earth  began, 
He  works  by  to  perfect  His  plan, 
Which  through  immediate  forms  ascends 
Of  Nature,  lifting,  race  by  race, 
Man  to  the  beauty  of  His  face  ? 

Through  Nature  only  we  arrive 

At  God  :  identical  with  truth, 

By  periods  of  repeated  youth, 
Through  Nature  must  the  Ages  strive  ; 

The  Epochs,  that  must  purify 
Themselves  through  her  experience, 

Her  knowledge,  which  each  Age  lays  by 

To  clothe  it  better  for  the  sky 
In  robes  of  new  intelligence 

Befitting  life,  that  upwardly 

Approaches  ends  but  God  can  see. 


^X 
OF  THF  A 

UNIVERSITY  1 
or  J 


INTIMA  TIONS\  $F  vJ&BEA  UTIFUL.       1 3 
XI. 

Within  the  life  awake  behold 

A  life  asleep     .     .     .     the  wildwood  shades  ! 
With  limbs  of  glimmering  coolness  lolled 
Along  the  purple  forest  glades  : — 

Sleep  in  each  unremembering  face, 
The  sea-worn  Greeks  knew  these  of  old — 

Day's  languid  lotus-eating  race. 

Within  the  mind  asleep  I  mark 

A  mind  awake  ;  and  see  the  sense 
That  stirs  the  sap  beneath  the  bark 

With  tender  hints  of  violence, 

The  liquid  germs  of  leaf  and  bud, 
And  in  the  ponderable  dark 

Fulfils  the  offices  of  blood. 

O  wiser  than  Thy  works  ! — behind 

Thy  works, — who  shall  behold  Thy  place  ? 

Beyond  the  suns  whose  beams  burn  blind 
Before  the  glory  of  Thy  face  !— 


14       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Among  the  least  of  these,  shall  we 
Presume  to  give  to  Thee,  defined, 
A  place  and  personality  ! 

XII. 

Across  the  hills,  that  roll  and  rise 
Beneath  the  blue,  adoring  skies, 

Maturing  Beauty  by  the  old, 
Fierce  forest  stands,  as  might  a  slave 
Before  a  Sultan  sitting  grave, 

Grim-gazing  from  a  throne  of  gold. 

Across  the  hills,  that  rise  and  fall, 
I  gaze  with  eyes  grown  spiritual, 

And  see  the  spirit  of  the  dew 
From  out  the  morn,  that  stains  the  mist 
With  amber  and  with  amethyst, 

Blown  bubble-bright  along  the  blue. 

What  king  such  kingly  pomp  can  show 
As  on  the  hills  the  afterglow  ? 
Where  'mid  red  woods  the  maples  sit, 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       1 5 

Like  scarlet-mantled  sagamores, 

Who,  from  their  totemed  wigwam  doors, 

Watch  through  red  fires  the  ghost-dance  flit. 

At  night,  as  comes  the  fox,  shall  come 
The  spirit  of  the  frost,  whose  thumb 

Shall  squeeze  the  chestnut  burs,  and  press 
Each  husk  bare  ;  whisper  every  flower 
Such  tales  of  death  that  in  an  hour 

It  dies  of  utter  happiness. 

Until  the  moon  sets  I  shall  walk, 
And  listen  wold  and  woodland  talk 

Of  by-gone  lovely  nights  and  days  : 
My  soul — made  silent  intimate 
Of  all  its  sorrow — soon  and  late 

A  neighbor  of  the  autumn  haze. 

XIII. 

What  revelations  fill  with  song 
The  cycles  ?  and  to  what  belong 

Life's  far  convictions  of  the  light  ? 
Through  which  the  spirit  waxeth  strong, 


1 6       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

The  darkling  soul  surmounts  the  night 
By  builded  rainbows  to  some  height, 
Near  mountain  stars  of  Truth  and  Right, 
Beyond  the  vulture  wing  of  Wrong  ? — 

Nature  !  who  still  adjusts  the  deeps 

Of  her  soul's  needs  to  man's  ;  and  keeps 
Such  grave  response  as  grief  shall  hear 

When  on  her  heart  it  sinks  and  weeps  ; 
For  every  gladness,  clean  and  clear 
Its  glad  reflection  lying  near — 
The  wild  accord  of  hope  and  fear 

Which  in  her  inmost  bosom  sleeps. 

XIV. 

The  mallow,  like  an  Elfland  moon, 

Within  the  marsh  gleams  grottoed  gold  ; 
Its  bell-shaped  blossom  seems  to  hold 

All  the  lost  beauty  of  last  June  : 

September's  mist  haunts,  white  and  cold, 

The  windings  of  the  forest  stream, 

As  death  might  haunt  soft  eyes  that  dream. 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       I*] 

And  who  with  idle  words  hath  stood, 
With  idle  thoughts,  and  gazed  into 
The  face  of  one  he  loved  and  knew, 

Dying  in  all  her  womanhood  ? 
No  words,  but  silence,  then  will  do, 

When  the  beloved  falls  asleep, 

No  thoughts  but  help  the  heart  to  weep. 

xv. 

The  snowy  flutter  of  a  hand 

Shall  glitter  in  the  morning  mist, 
And  from  the  mist  a  jewelled  wrist 
Of  dew  shall  beckon  and  command  : 
And  hope  shall  see  the  unknown  Land 
Of  Far  Away  beyond  the  Dawn, 
Where,  crowned  with  roses  wild  and  wan, 
The  Futures  of  the  World  speed  on. 

Along  the  eve  a  fiery  arm 

Shall  point  us  to  the  waning  west, 
And  all  the  sorrow,  that  oppressed 

The  heart  once,  shall  become  a  charm 


1 8       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Of  patience,  which  shall  so  transform 
The  Present  in  the  Long  Ago, 
The  Past — from  lands  we  used  to  know- 
Shall  lean  with  lilies  dropping  slow. 


XVI. 

Pearl-lilac  blent  with  pearly  rose, 

The  dawn  bloomed  slowly  out  of  dusk,— 
As  some  huge  cactus  from  its  husk 

Might  burst  a  bloom  whose  chalice  glows 
A  grotto  of  transmuted  dyes  ; — 

Such  wild,  auroral  light  as  flows 
On  ice-peaks  from  unearthly  skies. 

Dove-purple  shifting  into  shades 

Of  opal, — like  the  tints  which  dwell 

With  fire  in  the  ocean-shell, — 
The  sunset  flashed  above  the  glades 

Through  skies  of  nacre  and  of  flame  ; — 
Such  supernatural  light  as  braids 

Dim  coral  caves  that  have  no  name. 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       19 
XVII. 

Draw  from  thine  eyes  the  veil  which  hides 

Ideal  vision's  beckonings  ; 
Behold  the  beauty  which  abides 

Beneath  the  common-place  of  things  : 
No  brook  within  the  woodland  then 

But  shows  its  sparkling  god  to  thee  ; 

Upon  the  ancient  hills  no  tree 

Whose  whispering  spirit  thou  shalt  not  see, 
Fairer  than  children  born  of  men. 

Refine  thy  flesh,  which  never  hears 

The  inner  music  of  all  things, — 
The  deaf  flesh, — from  thy  spirit's  ears, 

And  list  the  vaster  voice  that  sings 
With  pregnant  lips  unto  the  Earth  : 

Mornings,  who  shout  from  sky  to  sky 

God's  psalms  to  which  the  eves  reply — 

The  everlasting  heavens  that  cry 
The  visible  truths  of  death  and  birth. 


20       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 
XVIII. 

The  flowers  of  the  fall  I  seek  : 
The  golden  aster, — like  a  gauze 
Of  gold, — beneath  the  nodding  haws, 

Or  making  gay  each  tangled  creek  ; 

The  hairy,  small  herb-Robert,  lost, — 

Yet  seen, — among  the  weeds  which  crush 
Or  crowd  it,  with  its  bluish  blush  ; 

Its  rough,  low  stalk  stung  red  with  frost. 

Around  the  rail-fence,  climbing  up, 

The  nightshade  hangs  rich  berries  down,- 
Clusters  of  cochineal, — that  drown 

The  flowering  bind-weed's  pendant  cup  : 

And  where  the  boggy  bottom  sets 
Its  burs  as  breastworks  and  as  tents, 
Like  bivouacking  regiments, 

The  cat-tails  lift  their  bayonets. 

From  amaranth — in  tree  and  flower — 
To  asphodel — in  weed  and  bloom — 
The  season  swings  a  magic  loom 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       21 

Of  sun  and  mist  from  hour  to  hour  : 
In  its  wide  warp  it  weaves  the  dyes 

Of  morning's  brilliant  blue  and  gray  ; 

And  crimson  through  the  weft  of  day 
Flings  the  wild  woof  of  evening  skies. 

XIX. 

What  intimations  made  them  wise, 

The  mournful  pine,  the  mighty  beech  ? 
Some  strange  and  esoteric  speech — 

(Communicated  from  the  skies 

In  secret  symbols) — that  invokes 

The  boles  which  sleep  within  the  seeds, 
And  out  of  narrow  darkness  leads 

The  vast  assemblies  of  the  oaks. 

Within  his  knowledge  what  one  reads 
The  poems  written  by  the  flowers  ? 
The  sermons,  past  all  speech  that  's  ours, 

Preached  in  the  gospel  of  the  weeds  ? — 

Thou  eloquence  of  coloring  ! 


22       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Oh,  thoughts  of  syllabled  perfume  ! 
Oh,  beauty  uttered  into  bloom  ! 
Thou  utterance  named  blossoming  ! 


xx. 


What  time  the  great  lobelia  fills 

The  wildwood  with  young  hopes  of  spring- 
And  bluets,  scattered  o'er  the  hills, 

Bloom,  starry-sown,  through  everything — 

My  fancy  takes  me  wandering, 
Looking  from  wizard  window-sills. 

In  lavender  lights,  which  sleep  among 
The  ferns,  my  heart  is  at  a  loss 

To  know  the  love  that  leads  along 
Down  magic  ways  of  faery  moss — 
A  brook,  perhaps,  will  call  across, 

An  unseen  bluebird  burst  in  song. 

And  so  to  reach  the  land,  which  lies 

Yon  side  the  world,  we  just  can  see  ; 
Wherein  the  Elfland  cities  rise, 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       2$ 

Faint  haunts  of  musk  and  melody  ; 
Wherein  the  singing-bird  and  bee, 
And  congregated  flowers  grow  wise. 

XXI. 

Upon  the  Earth  what  hints  are  rife 

Of  life  when  change  hath  left  us  still ! 

When  death  within  the  flesh  doth  kill 
All  recollection  that  was  life  ! 

What  hints,  which  tell  us  not  alone 
Immortal  is  the  spirit,  for 
Flesh  too, — corruption  can  but  mar, — 

The  incorruptible  puts  on  : 

The  blood  shall  fill  a  part  that  's  higher 

Of  color,  and  pervade  all  flowers ; 

The  brain  inform  the  twinkling  hours 
With  dreams  of  resurrected  fire  ; 

The  heart  perform  the  function  of 
A  fragrance  ;  and  the  countenance 
Lend  new  expression  to,  perchance, 

The  face  of  beauty  that  we  love, 


24       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 
XXII. 

Oh,  joy,  to  walk  the  way  which  goes 

Through  woods  of  sweet-gum  and  of  beech  ! 

Where,  like  a  ruby  left  in  reach, 
The  berry  of  the  dog-wood  glows  : 

Or  where  the  bristling  hillsides  mass, 

'Twixt  belts  of  tawny  sassafras, 
Brown  shocks  of  corn  in  wigwam  rows  ! 

Where,  in  the  hazy  morning,  runs 

The  stony  branch  that  pools  and  drips, 
The  red-haws  and  the  wild-rose  hips 

Are  strewn  like  pebbles  ;  and  the  sun's 
Own  gold  seems  captured  by  the  weeds  ; 
To  see,  through  scintillating  seeds, 

The  hunters  steal  with  glimmering  guns  ! 

Oh,  joy,  to  go  the  path  which  lies 

Through  woodlands  where  the  oaks  are  tall ! 

Beneath  the  misty  moon  of  fall, 
Whose  ghostly  girdle  prophesies 

A  morn  wind-swept  and  gray  with  rain  ; 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       2$ 

When,  o'er  the  lonely,  leafy  lane, 
The  night-bird,  like  a  dead  leaf,  flies  ! 

To  stand  within  the  dewy  ring 

Where  pale  death  smites  the  boneset  blooms, 
And  everlasting's  flowers,  and  plumes 

Of  mint,  with  aromatic  wing  ! 

And  hear  the  creek, — whose  sobbing  seems 
A  wild-man  murmuring  in  his  dreams, — 

And  insect  violins  that  sing  ! 

Or  where  the  dim  persimmon-tree 

Wastes  on  the  path  its  frosty  fruit, 

And  in  its  top  the  owl  doth  hoot 
Beneath  the  moon  and  mist,  to  see 

The  outcast  Year  come, — Hagar-wise, — 

With  far-off,  melancholy  eyes, 
And  lips  that  thirst  for  sympathy  ! 

XXIII. 

Along  my  mind  flies  suddenly 

A  wildwood  thought  that  will  not  die, 


26       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

That  makes  me  brother  to  the  bee, 
And  kindred  to  the  butterfly  : 

A  thought,  such  as  gives  perfume  to 
The  blushes  of  the  bramble-rose, 
And,  fixed  in  quivering  crystal,  glows 

A  captive  in  the  prismed  dew. 

It  leads  the  feet  no  certain  way, 

No  frequent  path  of  human  feet  ; 
Its  wild  eyes  follow  me  all  day, 

All  day  I  hear  its  wild  heart  beat  : 
And  in  the  night  it  sings  and  sighs 

The  songs  the  winds  and  waters  love  ; 

Its  wild  heart  lying  tranced  above, 
And  tranced  the  wildness  of  its  eyes. 

XXIV. 

With  eyes  regardless  of  their  tears 

I  look  upon  the  twilight  fields  : 

The  stars  swing  down  their  shimmering  shields, 
And  fill  the  phalanx  of  their  spears. 
I  can  not  see,  I  only  know 


INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL.       2/ 

A  flower  dies  beneath  my  feet ; 
The  fragrance  of  its  death  is  sweet 
And  bitter  as  my  heart's  own  woe. 

With  thoughts  which  find  not  what  they  seek 
I  question  Earth  and  Heaven,  and  find 
That  they  are  dark  and  I  am  blind, 

And  in  my  blindness  very  weak. 

I  do  not  know,  I  only  feel 

Behind  all  death  a  purpose  stands, 
With  hallowed  and  magnetic  hands, 

Beneficent  and  strong  to  heal. 

xxv. 

These  too  shall  tell  me  what  my  heart, 

And  what  my  soul  desireth  : — 

The  flowers,  that  bloom  serene  for  death, 
The  stars,  that  know  no  mortal  part. 
One  shall  inspire  my  heart  with  acts 

Of  life  so  that  the  death  responds  ; 
One  to  the  soul  breathe  higher  facts 

Of  death  that  shall  annul  such  bonds. 


28       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Sufficient  for  my  love  these  terms, 
Beyond  my  understanding's  scope  : 
I  merely  know  all  life  must  grope 

Not  downward  from  its  darkling  germs. 

Sufficient  for  my  faith  is  such  : 

That,  in  the  narrow  night  which  binds 

The  seed,  its  life  shall  feel  in  touch 
With  light  above  it  seeks  and  finds. 

XXVI. 

Beyond  the  violet-colored  hill 
The  golden-deepened  daffodil 
Of  dusk  bloomed  out  with  thrill  on  thrill  : 
And,  drifting  west,  the  crescent  moon 
Gleamed  like  a  sword  of  Scanderoon 
A  satrap  dropped  on  floors  of  gold  ; 
Near  which, — one  loosened  gem  that  rolled 
Out  of  the  jewelled  scimitar, — 
The  evening  star. 

Behind  the  trees,  where,  darkly  deep 
As  indigo,  the  shadows  sleep, — 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       2Q 

As  if  the  Titan  world  would  heap 
A  throne  with  purple  for  its  god, 
Whose  pomp  comes  with  vermilion  shod, — 
The  west,  'thwart  which  the  wild-ducks  fly, 
Burns,  richer  than  the  orient  dye 
Phoenician  vessels  brought  from  Tyre, 
With  carmine  fire. 

Above  black  hills  the  heavens  are  gray. 
The  sear,  bleak  forests  sound  and  sway. 
The  ashen  rain-clouds  roll  this  way. 
The  green  grig  in  the  withered  weeds 
Sings,  and  the  wild  snipe  seeks  the  reeds. 
With  hurling  winds, — that  moan  and  wail 
Like  Demon-huntsmen, — dark  with  hail 
And  rain,  which  blots  the  cabin's  light, 
Comes  on  the  night. 

XXVII. 

There  is  a  rushing  in  the  woods, 
The  murmur-haunted  solitudes, 

When  night  comes  in  with  winds  that  sweep 


3o     INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

The  wild  rain  from  the  hills  ;  and  reap 

The  roaring  harvest  of  the  leaves 

With  sounding  scythes  Death  stalks  behind 
And  Desolation,  fierce  and  blind, 

Heaping  the  storm's  tumultuous  sheaves. 

There  is  a  sighing  in  the  woods, 

The  rocks  of  hill-topped  solitudes, 

When  on  the  night,  the  winds  have  strewn 
With  crowding  clouds,  the  stormy  moon 

Bursts  like  a  herald  shouting  Cease  ! 
Through  darkness  o'er  a  battle-field 
Of  Hell  ;  the  splendor  of  his  shield 

Inscribed  with  silence  and  with  peace. 

XXVIII. 

The  storm, — that  makes  the  sky  its  own, 
And  smites  its  spirit  through  Earth's  nerves, 
And,  like  an  instrument  which  serves 

High  purposes  to  us  unknown 

Of  song  which  knows  not  that  it  sings, — 
Itself  is  all  majestic  things 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       3! 

Imagination  forms  or  feels  ; 
Itself  all  wonders  it  reveals 

To  thought,  which  knows  but  semblances 

Of  such  concealed  realities. 

The  star,  that  flames  through  storm  and  crowds 
An  instant  with  its  utterance 
Of  silence  and  serene  romance, 

And  glides  again  into  the  clouds, 

Shone  for  some  present  end,  and  filled 
A  moment's  need  as  Heaven  willed  : — 

A  thought,  some  dreamer  labored  for, 

Immaculate  as  is  a  star  ; 

A  hope,  some  weary  watcher  read 
Pale  in  the  loved  face  of  his  dead. 

XXIX. 

Towards  evening,  where  the  sweet-gum  flung 
Its  thorny  balls  among  the  weeds, 
And  where  the  milkweed's  sleepy  seeds, — 

A  fairy  Feast  of  Lanterns, — swung  ; 
The  crickets  tuned  a  plaintive  lyre, 


32       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

And  o'er  the  hills  the  sunset  hung 

A  purple  parchment  scrawled  with  fire. 

From  silver-blue  to  amethyst 

The  shadows  broadened  in  the  vale  ; 

And,  belt  by  belt,  the  pearly  pale 
Aladdin  fabric  of  the  mist 

Stretched  its  vague  exhalation  far  ; 
A  jewel  on  an  Afrit's  wrist, 

One  star  scarred  sunset's  cinnabar. 

Then  night  drew  near,  as  when,  alone, 

The  heart  and  soul  grow  intimate  ; 

And  on  the  hills  the  twilight  sate 
With  shadows,  whose  wild  robes  were  sown 

With  dreams  and  whispers — dreams,  that  led 
The  heart  once  with  love's  monotone, 

Searching  among  the  living  dead. 

XXX. 

Of  Life  and  of  Eternity 

These  are  the  dreams  which  came  to  me  : 

The  one  : — A  whitened  whirl  of  sea  ; 


INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL.       33 

A  gallows  beetling  through  the  rains, 
And,  tossing  in  its  rusty  chains, 

A  skeleton  on  the  gallows-tree  : 
Gaunt  ravens  roost  above  or  tear 
Long  strips  from  shrivelled  skin  and  hair  : 

A  ship  hurls  pounding  on  the  rocks  :  • 

Wild  minute-guns  boom  through  the  spume 
And  crashing  surf  :  out  of  the  gloom 

The  strangled  dead  leers  down  and  mocks. 

An  incorporeal  solitude 

Which  darkness  out  of  darkness  hewed, 
The  other  dream  :  enormous  deeps 
Of  naught,  where  ancient  Silence  sleeps, 

The  eldest  of  Heav'n's  Titan  brood  : — 
In  unilluminated  night, 
Vast  and  insufferable  white 

A  summit  soars  :  its  light,  which  dyes 
Not  darkness,  of  itself  is  born  : 
Around  its  splendor,  as  in  scorn, 

Night's  dark,  defiant  radiance  lies. 

3 


34       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 
XXXI. 

Past  midnight,  gathering  from  the  west, 
With  rolling  rain  the  storm  came  on, 
And  tore  and  tossed  until  the  dawn, 
Like  some  dark  demon  of  unrest  : 

The     stairways     creaked  ;     the     chimneys 

boomed  ; 

I  heard  the  wild  leaves  blown  about 
The  windy  windows  ;  and  the  shout 
Of  forests  that  the  storm  had  doomed. 

I  listened,  and  remembered  how 

On  yesterday  I  went  alone 

A  sunlit  path  through  fields  o'ergrown 
With  sumach  brakes,  turned  crimson  now  ; 

Where  asters  strung  blue  pearls  and  white 
Beside  the  golden-rod's  soft  ruff  ; 
The  groundsel,  silvery  puff  on  puff, 

Danced  many  a  twinkling  witch's-light. 

Her  joy  the  Autumn  uttered  so 

To  skies  where  gold  and  azure  blent ; 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       35 

Now  storm  is  the  embodiment 
Of  all  her  utterance  of  woe  : 

The  two  within  me  so  decide 
That  of  the  two  my  mind  partakes, — 
As  one,  who  walks  asleep,  awakes, 

Walks  on  and  thinks,  "  To-night  I  died. 

XXXII. 

What  sympathies  of  Heaven  and  Earth 

The  human  ego  enters  in  ! 

The  universal  stain  of  sin 
Which  qualifies  this  from  its  birth 
Denying  it  their  highest  worth. 

There  is  a  parallel  of  kin 
'Twixt  earth  and  man,  that  dignifies 
Endeavor  with  such  sympathies. 

The  all  mysterious  wisdom  waits 
In  mountain,  wood  and  waterfall, 
Sky,  rock  and  sea,  to  hear  the  call 

Of  something — firmer  than  the  Fates — • 

Deep  in  the  soul  it  elevates  ; 


36       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

And  to  the  splendor  of  the  All 
Advances,  through  the  night's  immense, 
The  spirit  of  experience. 

So  think  I  now  while,  long  and  loud, 
The  wind  its  maniac  music  beats, 
And  storm  a  madman's  song  repeats 

To  echoes  in  the  rushing  cloud  ; 

While  all  the  world  to  wrath  is  vowed, 
No  starlight  triumphs  or  defeats 

The  darkness  and  the  rain  that  raves 

Above  the  all-unheeding  graves. 


XXXIII. 

All  night  the  rain-gusts  shook  the  leaves 
Around  my  window  ;  and  the  blast 
Rumbled  the  flickering  flue,  and  fast 

The  storm  streamed  from  the  dripping  eaves. 

As  if — 'neath  skies  gone  mad  with  fear — 
The  witches'  sabboth  galloped  past, 

The  forests  leapt  like  startled  deer. 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       37 

All  night  I  heard  the  sweeping  sleet ; 

And  when  the  morning  came,  as  slow 

As  pale  affliction,  with  the  woe 
Of  all  the  world  dragged  at  her  feet, 
No  spear  of  purple  shattered  through 

The  dark  gray  of  the  east  ;  no  bow, 
Whose  golden  arrows  cleft  the  blue. 

But  rain,  that  whipped  the  windows  ;  filled 
The  spouts  with  rushing  ;  and  around 
The  garden  stamped,  and  sowed  the  ground 

With  limbs  and  leaves  ;  the  wood-pool  filled 

With  overgurgling. — Bleak  and  cold 

The  fields  looked,  where  the  foot-path  wound 

Through  teasel  and  bur-marigold.     .     .     . 

There  is  a  kindness  in  such  days 
Of  gloom,  that  doth  console  regret 
With  sympathy  of  tears  which  wet 

Old  eyes  that  watch  the  back-log  blaze — 

A  kindness,  alien  to  the  deep 
Glad  blue  of  sunny  days  that  let 

No  thought  in  of  the  sad  who  weep. 


38       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 
XXXIV. 

This  dawn,  through  which  the  Autumn   glowers,- 
As  might  a  face  within  our  sleep, 
With  coffined  eyes  that  can  not  weep, 

And  dead  brows  bound  with  withered  flowers, — 

Is  sunset  to  some  sister  land  ; 
A  land  of  ruins  and  of  palms  ; 
Rich  sunset,  crimson  with  long  calms, — 
Whose  burning  belt  low  mountains  bar, — 

That  sees  some  brown  Rebecca  stand 

Beside  a  well  the  camel  band 
Winds  down  to  'neath  the  evening-star. 


O  sunset,  sister  to  this  dawn  ! 

O  dawn,  whose  face  is  turned  away  ! 

Who  gazest  not  upon  this  day 
But  back  upon  the  day  that 's  gone  ! 
Enamoured  so  of  loveliness, 

The  retrospect  of  what  thou  wast, 

Oh,  to  thyself  the  present  trust ! 

And  as  thy  past  make  beautiful 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       39 

With  hues,  that  never  can  grow  less  ! 
Waiting  thy  pleasure  to  express 

New  beauty,  lest  the  world  grow  dull ! 

xxxv. 

At  day-break  from  the  woodland  come 
Echoes  of  hunting ;  or  the  chop 

Of  some  far  woodman's  axe,  that  cleaves 
The  tingling  oak,  whose  russet  leaves 
Drop  drowsy  where  the  white  chips  drop  : 
The  air  is  fragrant  with  the  loam, 

Where,  through  the  mists  of  steaming  gold, 
The  sudden  sun  strikes  fold  on  fold. 

Out  of  the  window,  filmed  with  fog, 
I  look  into  the  wreck  which  was 

The  kitchen-garden,  drenched  with  rain  ; 
Among  the  death  I  mark  again 
One  pink  convolvulus — that  draws 
A  gray  vignette  along  a  log, — 

With  pencilled  tendrils  washed  and  wan — 
The  garden-legend's  colophon. 


4O       INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 
XXXVI. 

More  storm  than  calm,  less  gold  than  gray, 

Along  the  years  our  lives  must  tread, 
Makes  sad  the  scenes  around  our  way, 
Makes  grave  the  heavens  overhead  : 

For  on  Life's  storied  page,  behold, 
Reflections  of  Earth's  countless  dead ! 
The  neutral  tint  Time's  fingers  lay 
Around  a  tale  that 's  never  told. 

Time  writes  with  sunshine  less  than  rain, 

With  starlight  less  than  mist,  the  scroll— 
A  thousand  memories  of  pain 
To  one  of  joy — of  his  own  soul  : 
The  golden  hues  of  life  occur 
In  his  dim  palimpsest,  whose  whole 
Death  scrawls  with  dusty  lines  again, 
Making  the  scroll  one  leaden  blur. 

XXXVII. 

Down  in  the  woods  a  sorcerer, 

Out  of  rank  rain  and  death,  distills, 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       41 

Through  chill  alembics  of  the  air, 
Aromas  that  brood  everywhere 

Among  the  dingles  of  the  hills  : 

The  bitter  myrrh  of  dead  leaves  fills 
Wet  valleys,  where  the  gaunt  weeds  bleach, 

With  dreamy  scents  of  wood  decay  ; — 

As  if  a  spirit  all  the  day 
Sat  breathing  softly  'neath  the  beech. 

What  other  eyes  shall  see  her  flit, 

The  white  witch  of  the  wild  perfumes, 
Among  her  sleepy  owls,  that  sit, 
A  fluffy  white,  in  crescent-lit 

Lost  glens  and  opalescent  glooms  ? 

Where  for  her  magic  buds  and  blooms 
Mysterious  perfumes,  while  she  stands, 

A  fragrant  radiance,  summoning 

The  eery  odors  that  take  wing, 
Like  bubbles,  from  her  dewy  hands. 

XXXVIII. 

With  leagues  of  fog,  which  showed  the  sun 
An  agate-red  without  a  ray, 


42       INTIMATIONS   OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

And  drowned  the  world  in  ghostly  gray, 
The  chill,  autumnal  day  begun  : 
A  phantom  in  the  mist,  a  run 

Foamed  over  phantom  ledges  lone 
Of  forest  that  seemed  far  away, 
A  forest  of  enchanted  stone. 

With  horses  saffron  to  the  knees 

A  country  cart  drove  through  the  fog  ; 
Its  creaking  wheels  grown  one  great  clog 
Of  clay,  and  clanking  swingle-trees  ; 
Its  smothered  rumble  did  not  cease 

Till  hidden  in  the  woodland  mist, 
Where,  leaning  on  his  axe  and  log, 
The  muffled  woodman  blew  his  fist. 


Another  world  I  wander  in 

Of  unlaid  ghosts  and  dreams  unfled  ; 

A  twilight  world  of  drowsyhead 
And  mystery,  built  figment-thin 
Between  the  worlds  of  death  and  sin  ; 

Where  dim  and  vague  and  incomplete 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       43 

And  substance  less  seem  things  not  dead, 
And  sorrowful  as  sadly  sweet. 


xxxix. 

Among  the  woods  they  call  to  me — 
The  lights  that  lie  on  rock  and  stream  ; 

Chaste  voices  of  such  ecstasy 

As  walks  with  hushed  lips  through  a  dream 

They  stand  in  nimbused  essences, 
Or  flash  with  glittering  limbs  across 
Their  golden  shadows  on  the  moss, 

Or  slip  in  silver  through  the  trees. 

What  love  can  give  the  heart  in  me 

More  hope  and  exaltation  than 
The  hand  of  light  that  tips  the  tree 

And  calls  me  from  the  world  of  man  ? 
That  reaches  foamy  fingers  through 

The  broken  ripple,  and  denies 

No  sparkling  speech  of  fearless  eyes, 
Nor  lips  that  sing  and  still  pursue  ? 


44       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 
XL. 

Oh,  bright  the  day,  and  calm  and  cool 
With  clouds,  like  cotton-fields  that  swoon 
Beneath  the  silver  summer  moon  ; 

And,  quiet  as  a  forest  pool, 

Where  Autumn  stoops  to  comb  her  locks, 
And  strews  with  rainbow  leaves  and  roon, 

The  shadows  rest  among  the  rocks. 

The  sun  pours  airy  amber  on 

The  withered  wood-ways,  where  the  late 

Green-crickets'  oboes  vibrate  ; 
And,  fainter  than  the  lines  of  dawn, 
The  fields  shine  labyrinthed  with  rays, 

With  gossamers,  that  figurate 
Bright  figments  of  the  feverish  days. 

Beyond  the  yarrow's  meekness  now, 
Wood-sorrel's  lowliness,  the  shy 
Hepatica's  humility, 

The  Year  hath  grown  :  makes  brave  her  brow 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       4$ 

With  crowning  crimson  of  the  lands, 
And  robes  her  limbs  in  sunset  dye, 
And  by  the  lonely  waters  stands. 

XLI. 

Pure  thought-creations  of  the  mind, 
Within  the  circle  of  the  soul, — 
The  emanations  that  control 
Life  to  its  God-predestined  goal, — 

Are  spirit  shapes  no  flesh  can  bind  : 
Within  the  soul  desire  ordains 
Achievements  which  the  will  obtains  ; 

And  far  above  us,  on  before, 

Our  thoughts — a  beautiful  people — soar, 
To  wait  us  on  celestial  plains. 

So  Nature  pours  her  thoughts  in  forms — 

Realities  we  move  among — 

Of  fragrance,  color,  and  of  song ; 

Sense-emanations  which  belong, 
Invisible,  to  spiritual  charms  ; 

The  sensuous  substance  of  her  thought 


46       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

From  immaterial  matter  wrought — 
Matter,  which  death  can  not  annul, 
That  constitutes  the  Beautiful, 

And  dead,  repeats  itself  from  naught. 


XLII. 

Give  me  the  streams  !  which  counterfeit 
The  starlight  of  autumnal  skies  ; 

The  silent,  shadowy  waters,  lit 
With  fire  like  a  woman's  eyes  : 

Slow  waters  which,  in  autumn,  glass 

The  scarlet-strewn  and  golden  grass, 
And  drink  the  sunset's  tawny  dyes. 

Give  me  the  pools  !  which  lie  among 

The  centuried  forests  :  give  me  those 
Deep,  dim,  and  sad  as  shadows  hung 

Dark  'neath  the  sunset's  sombre  rose  ; 
Pale  pools,  in  whose  vague  mirrors  look- 
Like  ragged  gypsies  round  a  book 
Of  magic — trees  in  wild  repose. 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       4? 

No  quiet  thing  or  innocent 

Of  water,  earth,  or  air  shall  please 

My  soul  now  :  but  the  violent 
Between  the  sunset  and  the  trees  : 

The  fierce,  the  splendid  and  intense, 

That  love  matures  in  innocence, 
Like  awful  music,  give  me  these. 

XLIII. 

As  Nature  in  herself  resolves 
All  parts  of  beauty  to  one  whole, 

And  from  the  perfect  whole  evolves 
The  high  ideas  that  control 

Advancement,  till  the  time  be  ripe 

To  doff  disguise  and,  type  by  type, 
Reveal  the  emanated  soul  : 

So  should  the  Beautiful  in  man 
Evolve  the  best  in  him  ;  to  be 

The  lofty  purpose  life  began 

For  ends  which  only  Heaven  shall  see — 


48       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

The  absolute,  that  sees  how  thought 
Its  high  ideal's  shape  hath  wrought 
To  be  its  far  affinity. 

XLIV. 

I  hold  them  here  ;  they  are  no  less  ; 
I  see  them  still — the  changeful  grays 
Of  threatening  skies  above  the  haze — 
My  hills  !  that  roll  long,  murmuring  miles 

Of  savage-painted  wilderness, 

On  which  the  saddened  sunlight  smiles  ; 
Or,  like  a  fallen- angel's  frown — 
Severe  beneath  a  burning  crown — 

Through  sombre  silvers,  that  oppress 
With  clouds  its  glory,  rushes  down. 

I  hear  the  coming  storm  again  ; 

Again  behold  the  streaming  clouds  ; 
The  autumn  wind  drives  down  and  crowds 
Wild,  sibylline  voices  through  the  leaves, 
And  whispering  octaves  of  the  rain  ; 
A  wilder  wind,  vibrating,  heaves 


INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL.       49 

God's  music  through  the  rolling  woods — 
Upon  my  soul  the  grandeur  broods 
Like  some  archangel's  trumpet  strain, 
Or  organ-pomp  that  sweeps  all  moods. 

XLV. 

Such  circumstance  of  passionate  praise 
Hath  no  religion  ;  and  the  creeds 

No  pomp  of  worship  or  of  grace 

Like  Nature's,  standing  face  to  face 
With  God,  whose  inmost  thought  she  reads  : 
No  multitude  of  words  she  needs, 

Since  all  her  worship  is  one  word 

Of  love,  like  that  creation  heard. 

God  leaves  progression  in  her  care  : 
Through  her  it  must  materialize — 

Our  mother  !  with  strong  lips  of  prayer, 

Majestic-browed,  with  hands  that  bare 
Immortal  fire  from  the  skies  : 
Who  looks  with  no  evasive  eyes 

Through  life,  and,  smiling,  sees  beneath 

The  beautiful,  dark  eyes  of  death. 


5O      INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 
XLVI. 

Between  the  sunset  and  the  stars 

Long  clouds  lie — as  the  sachems  loom, 
In  war-paint  and  the  eagle  plume, 

Among  their  wampumed  warriors, 

When  council  fires  burn  red  and  set 
On  stoic  cheeks  the  battle  bloom, 

Around  the  smoking  calumet. 

Beneath  the  stars  and  hunter's-moon 

The  frost  spreads  ghosts  of  pearls,  that  glance 
Like  goblin  jewels  in  the  dance 

Which  whirls  on  fairied  hills  of  June  : 

The  night  is  calm  ;  no  luminous  veil 
Conceals  the  spirit  utterance 

Of  her  dark  beauty,  pure  and  pale. 

XLVII. 

I  sat  alone  with  song  and  sleep, 

And  in  the  singing  silence  heard 
The  darkness  draw  from  out  the  deep. 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       $] 

With  star  on  star,  like  word  on  word  : 
A  sound  of  twilight  and  swift  shades 

Materializing  into  Night, 

Who  hears  the  breaking  waves  of  light, 
And  towards  the  shores  of  Morning  wades. 

I  sat  alone  with  dawn  and  death, 

And  in  my  waking  vision  saw 
The  form  of  silence,  like  a  breath 

Of  bodiless  beauty  and  of  awe, 
Whose  sibyl  eyes  said  unto  me 

The  things  the  sealed  lips  would  not  word, 

That  eons  of  the  stars  record 
In  volumes  of  eternity. 

XLVIII. 

The  dead  gold  of  the  marybud, 
The  dusky,  tarnished  orange-red 
Of  zinnias,  fire  the  flower-bed, 

Like  frosty  autumn  gleams  that  scud 

The  darkening  dusks  and  gradual  dawns 
Above  the  mist-enveloped  lawns. 


52       INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

With  tired  eyes,  and  heart  grown  grave, 
And  thoughts  more  listless  than  the  night, 
I  watch  the  dwindling  of  the  light, 

And  hear  the  rising  night-winds  rave, 
As  one  might  hear,  when  half-asleep, 
Another  self  make  moan  and  weep. 


XLIX. 

Behold,  the  winds  have  speech  and  speak  ! 

The  stars  of  heaven  are  eloquent  ! 
A  voice  within  us  bids  us  seek 

The  word  the  flowers  write  with  scent  : 

The  spiritual  encouragement 
Of  beauty  that  the  burning  scrolls 
Of  eve  and  morning  give  our  souls. 

There  is  one  language  of  the  mart  ; 
Another  of  the  rocks  and  trees  : 

Unrest  and  greed  is  this  one's  heart  ; 
The  heart  of  that  is  rest  and  peace  : 
Within  our  souls  we  know  of  these ; 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       53 

They  lead  us  by  the  myths  we  love, 
Yet  never  see  and  know  not  of. 


L. 


When  thorn-tree  copses  still  were  bare 

And  black  along  the  brawling  brook ; 

When  catkined  willows  blurred  and  shook 
Great  tawny  tangles  in  the  air  ; 

In  bottom-lands,  the  first  thaw  makes 
An  oozy  bog,  beneath  the  trees, 

Prophetic  of  the  spring  that  wakes, 
Sang  the  sonorous  Hylodes. 

Now  when  wild  winds  have  stripped  the  thorn, 

And  strewn  with  leaves  the  forest  creek  ; 

Now  when  the  woods  look  brown  and  bleak, 
And  webs  are  frosty  white  at  morn  ; 

At  night  beneath  the  spectral  sky, 
A  far  foreboding  cry  I  hear — 

The  wild-fowl  calling  as  they  fly  ? 
Or  vague  voice  of  the  dying  year  ? 


54       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 
LI. 

Night, — who  within  heaven's  uttermost 
Dark  walls  uncloses  shadowy  gates, — 
Beyond  the  Spirit  of  Light  she  hates, 

Speeds  like  a  ghost  before  a  ghost 

Upon  the  twilight-haunted  coast 
Of  death  between  the  seas  of  sleep  : 

Her  lips  are  dumb  with  awe  that  hears  ; 
And  in  her  eyes,  that  never  weep, 

Is  anguish  of  eternal  tears. 

Out  of  the  terrible  gulfs  of  God 
Into  God's  awful  deeps  she  goes, 
Revealing  in  heaven's  golden  glows 

The  ways  her  footsteps  tread  and  trod 

From  period  to  period  : 

Her  lips  are  still — for  she  hath  heard 

God's  voice  that  moves  the  universe  : 
Her  eyes  are  sad  beyond  the  word — 

The  eyes  of  vastness  gazed  in  hers. 


INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL.       55 
LII. 

And  still  to  hold  the  heart  at  tryst 
When  chestnuts  hiss  among  the  coals, 
The  hallowed  evening  near  All  Souls, 

When  all  the  night  is  moon  and  mist, 
And  all  the  world  is  mystery. 

To  dream  lips  kissed — that  death  hath  kissed  ; 
Eyes  seen — no  eyes  can  ever  see  ; 
And  love  returned — long  lost  to  thee  ! 

To  hear  the  weird  wind's  velvet  glove 

Flutter  the  window  :  or  the  knob 

Of  some  dark  door  turn,  with  a  sob 
As  when  love  comes  to  murder  love 

And  steals  with  horror  through  the  room  : 
Or  now  the  iron  gauntlet  of 

The  gust — a  knight,  who  comes  with  gloom 

To  meet  his  lady  by  her  tomb. 

So  fancy  takes  the  mind,  and  paints 
The  darkness  with  eidolon  light, 


56       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

And  writes  the  dead's  romance  in  white, 
On  the  dim  Evening  of  All  Saints  : 

Unheard  the  hissing  nuts  ;  the  clink 
Of  falling  coals,  whose  shadow  faints, — 

A  spectre  risen  on  memory's  brink, — 

Around  us  where  we  sit  and  think. 

Lin. 

No  thing  occult  of  Heaven  or  Earth, 

Or  influence  of  such,  I  feel 
But  hath  a  meaning  and  a  worth 

God  in  His  wisdom  doth  conceal : 
Reflections  of  another  birth, 

Existent  with  and  kin  to  ours, 

Announcing  through  supernal  powers 
Facts  of  a  world  it  would  reveal. 

In  Nature  dost  perceive  it,  too, 

This  other  life  thou  canst  not  see  : — 

A  spirit  sparkles  in  the  dew, 

The  trees  have  tongues  which  speak  to  thee 

That  Earth  is  green  and  Heaven,  blue, 


INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL.       57 

The  sight  alone  may  satisfy ; 
The  soul  sees  with  a  different  eye 
The  meaning  'neath  the  mystery. 

LIV. 

The  shadow  of  uncertain  things 
And  all  unearthly  whisperings, — 
The  premonition  pale  of  blight, — 
Leans  from  the  sepulchre  of  night  ; 
And  on  the  Earth  fall  shadowings, 

And  prophesies  of  near  decay  ; 
And,  lovelier  than  a  dead  delight, 
The  starlit  skies  of  glittering  gray. 

Still  shall  the  Season  claim  and  keep 
Her  wild-girl  beauty  ;  doubly  deep 
The  purport  of  her  dreams  shall  rise 
Out  of  her  heart  into  her  eyes, 
Till  very  dreaming  makes  her  sleep  ; 

And  death,  with  pale,  pure  lips  and  arms, 
Shall  touch  her  from  the  frosty  skies, 
Making  a  memory  of  her  charms. 


58       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 
LV. 

Sometime  shall  Beauty  hide  no  more 
The  chaste  conceptions  she  conceives 
Beneath  the  abstract  veil  she  weaves 

Before  her  face  the  few  adore  ; 
The  self-denying  few,  who  long 
Live  lofty  lives  of  art  and  song, 

And,  dying,  leave  the  world  less  poor. 

No  more  are  these  alone  when  she, 
From  the  subjective  world  she  rules, 
Confronts  the  falsehood  of  the  schools 

With  her  high  front  of  purity  ; 
And  on  the  dark  and  general  way 
Lets  fall  her  individual  ray 

That  low  as  well  as  high  may  see. 

LVI. 

The  ghost  of  what  was  loveliness 
Sits  in  the  waning  woods,  with  bare 
And  bleeding  feet,  and  wintry  hair, 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       59 

And  brows  the  thorns  of  care  distress  ; 

She  makes  a  comfort  of  despair, 
And,  Rachel-like,  with  eyes  wept  red, 
Refuses  to  be  comforted. 

To  funeral  torches  for  the  Year, 

With  tree  by  tree,  the  forests  turned  ; 
Then,  fiery  coals  in  ashes,  burned 

A  few  last  leaves  among  the  sere  ; 

Where,  robed  with  purple  pomp,  she  yearned 

To  die,  like  some  fair  queen  ;  and  died, 

Crowned  with  magnificence  and  pride. 

LVII. 

She  meets  us  with  impressive  hands 

And  eyes  of  earnest  emphasis 
Between  the  known  and  unknown  lands, 

And  beautifies  us  with  her  kiss, 
This  spirit  of  the  solitude 
Named  Meditation ;  thought-imbued, 

On  whom  all  beauty  ministers  ; 


60       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Whose  silent,  dreaming  worshippers 
Lay  unresisting  hands  in  hers, 
Knowing  their  hearts  are  understood. 

The  holy  harp  she  holds  and  smites 
Was  tuned  among  concordant  spheres  ; 

The  heavenly  pen  with  which  she  writes 
Was  dipped  in  angel  smiles  and  tears  : 

Between  her  eyebrows  and  her  eyes 

The  starry  stamp  of  silence  lies  ; 

Between  her  symboled  lips  and  tongue, 
The  song  the  stars  of  morning  sung  : 
To  this  her  heavenly  harp  is  strung, 

In  that  her  holy  pen  is  wise. 

LVIII. 

Again  the  night  is  wild  with  rain  ; 

Again  distracted  with  the  gale  ; 

Upon  the  hills  I  hear  a  wail 
Of  lamentation  and  of  pain, 

As  when,  on  some  high  burial-place, 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       6 1 

Moaning  among  the  windy  graves, 
The  Indian  squaws  lament  the  braves, 
Who  fell  in  battle  for  their  race. 

Another  day  of  storm  shall  dawn 

Within  the  east  ;  and,  darkly  lit, 

Its  brows  of  stern  abstraction  knit, 
Absorbed  in  moody  thought,  pass  on. — 

Bear  not  too  hard,  is  all  I  ask, 
Upon  the  hearts  that  toil  and  yearn  ! 
O  despotism  of  days,  that  spurn 

All  gladness,  with  your  frowning  mask  ! 

LIX. 

No  wind  is  this  which  cries  forlorn 
Around  the  hilltops  and  the  woods  ! — 
Earth,  weary  with  her  multitudes 

Of  dead,  despairing  of  the  morn, 
Calls  through  illimitable  night 

The  wailing  words  no  thing  may  know  : 
Deep  in  her  memory-haunted  sight 


62       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Sleeps  no  remembrance  of  delight, 
But  death  and  everlasting  woe. 

No  wind  !  a  voice  whose  sense  is  form  ; 

A  form  whose  sense  is  but  a  sound  ; 

That  smites  the  constant  skies  around, 
And  shakes  the  steadfast  hills  with  storm  : 

Along  life's  desolate  deep  it  cries 
The  words  death's  sterile  lips  must  learn 

From  Law,  the  Law  that  never  dies — 

Such  utterless  wild  speech  as  sighs 
In  stone  and  cinerary  urn. 


LX. 


I  heard  the  wind,  before  the  morn 

Stretched  gaunt,  gray  fingers  at  my  pane, 
Drive  clouds  down,  a  dark  dragon  train  ; 

Its  iron  visor  closed,  a  horn 
Of  steel  from  out  the  north  it  wound. — 

No  morn  like  yesterday's  !  whose  mouth, 

A  cool  carnation,  from  the  south 


INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL.       63 

Breathed  through  a  golden  reed  the  sound 
Of  days  that  drop  sweet  gold  upon 
Melodious  silver  floors  of  dawn. 

And  all  of  yesterday  is  lost 

And  swallowed  in  to-day's  wild  light — 

The  birth  deformed  of  day  and  night, 
The  illegitimate,  who  cost 

Its  mother  secret  tears  and  sighs  ; 
Unlovely  since  unloved  ;  and  chilled 
With  sorrows  and  the  shame  that  filled 

Its  parents'  love  ;  which  was  not  wise 
In  passion  as  that  day  and  night 
Who  love,  and  marry  light  to  light 


LXI. 

We  know  not  of  one  mood  that  's  hers, 
Or  glad  or  grave,  which  hath  not  drawn 

Its  source  from  God's  blue  universe, 
As  th'  hours  draw  the  day  from  dawn — 

Nature's  !  who  holds  us  quietly 


64       INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

But  earnestly,  as  by  a  spell, 
Whose  contact  with  us  seems  to  be 
Actual  and  yet  intangible. 

In  us  she  thus  asserts  her  claims 

Of  kinship  and  divine  control ; 
God-teacher  of  exalted  aims, 

The  high  consents  of  star  and  soul  : 
Imperfectly  man  sees  and  feels, 

Through  earthly  mediums  of  his  fate, 
The  premonitions  she  reveals 

For  issues  that  shall  elevate. 


LXII. 

Down  through  the  dark,  indignant  trees, 

On  indistinguishable  wings 

Of  storm,  the  wind  of  evening  swings  ; 
Before  its  insane  anger  flees 

The  mad  leaf  and  the  broken  bough  : 
There  is  a  rushing,  as  when  seas 

Of  thunder  beat  an  iron  prow 


INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL.       65 

On  reefs  of  wrath  and  roaring  wreck  : 
'Mid  stormy  leaves,  a  hurrying  speck 
Of  flickering  blackness,  driven  by 
The  mad  bats  whirl  along  the  sky. 

Part  of  the  sadness  of  such  eves, 

A  melancholy— visible 

Within  the  forest's  wizard  spell — 
A  gaunt  girl  stands  among  the  leaves, 

The  night-wind  in  her  dolorous  dress  : 
Symbolic  of  the  life  that  grieves, 

The  toil  that  patience  makes  not  less, 
Her  load  of  fallen  faggots  there. 
A  wilder  shadow  sweeps  the  air ; 
She  hears  the  bleak,  bewildered  hum 
Of  woods,  and  waits,  like  grief  struck  dumb. 

LXIII. 

No  songs  but  what  are  sorrowful 

And  sweet  in  pensive  notes  and  words, 
Shall  fill  my  heart,  as  singing  birds 

Might  build  a  nest  within  a  skull.     .     .     . 


66       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

The  nunlike  days,  in  stoles  of  white, 
Chant  requiems  for  the  dying  Year  ; 
The  monklike  nights  about  her  bier, 
In  cowls  of  black,  with  lights  that  blear, 

The  service  for  the  dead  recite. 

Into  my  soul  the  litanies 

Of  life  and  death  strike  golden  bars  ; 

I  hear  the  far,  responding  stars, 
That  voice  the  'multiplying  skies, 
Reverberate  from  cause  to  cause 

Results  that  terminate  in  man  ; 

From  world  to  world,  the  rounding  plan 

Of  change,  that  circumstance  began, 
Of  which  both  life  and  death  are  laws. 

LXIV. 

No  sunlight  strews  with  gold  the  plain  ; 

No  moonlight  stains  the  hill  with  white  ; 
Clouds,  sullen  with  the  undropped  rain, 

And  motionless  with  unspent  spite, 
Dome  deep  with  uninvaded  gray 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL.       67 

The  dull,  ignoble  term  of  day, 
The  duller  ultimate  of  night. 

Yea,  ev'n  the  mad,  marauding  Wind, 

Who  whipped  his  wild  steeds  east  and  west, 

Whose  whirlwind  wheels  rolled  down  and  dinned 
Along  the  booming  forest's  crest, 

Lies  dead  upon  his  mountains,  where 
His  sister  Breezes  beat  the  breast, 

Sighing  through  their  unshaken  hair. 


LXV. 

The  griefs  of  Nature  like  her  joys 
Are  placid  and  yet  passionate  ; 
These,  in  her  heart  which  knows  no  hate, 

She  for  the  beautiful  employs.     .     .     . 

Behold  how  thoughts  of  happiness 

Rebuke  the  tears  on  sorrow's  face  ! 

Upon  the  brow  of  joy  no  less 

How  grief  restrains  with  seriousness  ! 

Each  to  the  other  lending  grace. 


68       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Oh,  tenderness  of  grief  that  knows 

Some  happiness  still  lies  before  ! 

That  for  the  rose  which  blooms  no  more 
Shall  bloom  a  no  less  perfect  rose  ! 
Oh,  pensiveness  of  joy  that  takes 

Sweet  dignity  from  grief  that  died  ! 
Remembering,  though  the  morning  shakes 
Her  bright  locks  from  blue  eyes  and  wakes, 

Night  sleeps  on  the  same  mountain  side  ! 

LXVI. 

What  sorcery  do  the  woods  conceal 

Desired  by  the  desperate  days  ? 

With  feet  of  fog  and  hands  of  haze 
They  search  the  crumbled  woods  and  steal 
With  mutt'rings, — gaunt  as  hags  who  deal 

In  witchcraft, — where  the  dark  bough  sways, 
And,  venerable,  with  staff  a-slant, 
Death  sits  like  some  old  mendicant. 

Around  me  all  's  despondency, 

Like  darkness  on  th'  unwilling  world  ; 


INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL.       69 

A  twilight  sadness  held  and  hurled 
With  sobbing  silence  over  me  : 
I  feel  the  thorns  no  man  shall  see, 

The  snake  which  strikes  where  none  is  curled — 
Oh,  melancholy  of  the  soul 
That  struggles  and  attains  no  goal ! 


The  song-birds  ?  are  they  flown  away  ? 

The  song-birds  of  the  summer-time, 
That  sang  their  souls  into  the  day, 

And  set  the  laughing  days  to  rhyme  ? — 
No  catbird  scatters  through  the  hush 

The  sparkling  crystals  of  its  song  ; 
Within  the  woods  no  hermit-thrush 

Trails  an  enchanted  flute  along, 
A  sweet  assertion  of  the  hush. 

All  day  the  crows  fly  cawing  past ; 

The  acorns  drop  ;  the  forests  scowl : 
At  night  I  hear  the  bitter  blast 

Hoot  with  the  hooting  of  the  owl. 
The  wild  creeks  freeze  ;  the  ways  are  strewn 


7O       INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

With  leaves  that  rot :  beneath  the  tree 
The  bird,  that  set  its  toil  to  tune, 

And  made  a  home  for  melody, 
Lies  dead  beneath  the  death-white  moon. 


KNOWLEDGE  AND  BEAUTY. 


KNOWLEDGE    AND   BEAUTY. 


HALL  I  forget  and  yet  behold 
How  earth  hath  said  its  secret,  to 
The  violet's  appealing  blue, 
Of  fragrance  ;  old  as  earth  is  old, 
The  knowledge  that  is  never  told  ? 

Shall  I  behold  and  yet  forget, 
The  soft  blue  of  the  heaven  fell, 
Between  the  dusk  and  dawn,  to  tell 

Its  purpose,  to  the  violet, 

Of  beauty  none  hath  fathomed  yet  ? 

Between  the  earth  and  sky,  above, 
The  wind  goes  singing  all  day  long  ; 
And  he  who  listens  to  its  song 
May  catch  an  instant's  meaning  of 
The  end  of  life,  the  end  of  love. 


72       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


ELEUSINIAN. 

PRAXITELEAN  marbles,  fairer  forms 
Than   Phryne's  and  than  hers,  who  loved 

and  knew 
The  Attic  cynic's  soul,  the  rosy  charms 

Of  lovely  Lai's,  gradually  grew 
Before  my  eyelids,  like  a  floating  mist, 
Out  of  the  music  of  the  citharist. 

And  there  were  Dryads,  laughing  sidewise  eyes, 
Among  Cithaeron's  ash-trees  ;  and  uncouth 

Brown  Satyrs,  dancing  'neath  Boeotian  skies  ; 
And  by  a  fountain  sat  a  beautiful  youth, 

Like  some  white  flow'r,  with  dim,  dejected  grace, 

In  love  with  the  reflection  of  his  face. 

And  then  a  chord  of  soft  bewitchment  swept 

Along  my  soul  ;  and,  oh  !  within  a  vale, 
Like  some  young  god,  a  godlike  mortal  slept ; 


ELEUSINIAN.  73 

And  there  was  splendor  on  the  heights,  and  pale 
The  presence  of  supernal  purity, 
Whose  face  was  as  a  marble  melody. 

And  now  two   chords,  that   were   two   hands  that 
strewed 

Innumerable  memories  upon 
My  eyelids — and  my  spirit  understood 

How,  ages  past,  I  was  Endymion  ; 
Feeling  once  more  the  old,  wild  rapture  of 
Immortal  sorrow  and  immortal  love. 


74      INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


CHRYSELEPHANTINE, 
i. 

AMONG  the  hills  and  morning-colored  ways 
Let  us  go  forth,  oh,  let  us  go  with  singing  ! 
Within  the  hearts  of  better  bosoms  bringing 
jV  gift  of  gifts,  one  day  of  all  our  days, 
Unto  the  golden  temple  of  God's  praise, 
And  ivory  altar  of  the  beautiful : 
The  woods  are  deep,  the  woods  are  dark  and  cool ; 
Let  us  go  forth  with  timbrels  of  rejoicing, 
And  lutes  of  love,  and  lips  forever  voicing 
The  beautiful ! 


2. 


The  milkwort's  pink  and  barley's  gold  and  green, 
Twined  with  the  purple  of  the  wilding  pansies, 
Wild  pansies — dreamy  as  an  old  romance  is 

With  sad  blue  eyes  of  some  enchanted  queen 


CHR  YSELEPHA  N  TINE.  J  5 

In  fairyland,  through  fable  casements  seen — 
Wreathed  with  mauve  leaves,  to  give  to  loveliness, 
On  moss  as  cool  and  soft  as  a  caress  : 

Let  us  go  forth,  arrayed  as  is  the  morning, 
With  psalteries  of  praise,  to  the  adorning 
Of  loveliness  ! 


No  spotted  snake  shall  hiss  within  the  shrine 

High  God  ordains,  within  the  heav'nlit  distance, 
Young   love   shall  build,  with   life   to   give  as 
sistance, 

Of  fragrance  and  of  song  ;  whereon  shall  shine 
All  of  His  stars  to  make  it  all  divine  : 
No  toad  without  shall  croak  ;  but  purity 
Shall    guard    the    entrance, — none    impure    shall 

see  ! — 

For  worshippers  of  beauty  in  the  spirit, 
The  offerers  of  thought,  which  doth  inherit 
But  purity. 


76       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


SIBYLLINE. 

i. 

THERE  is  a  glory  in  the  apple  boughs 
Of  silver  moonlight ;  like  a  torch  of  myrrh, 
Burning  upon  an  altar  of  sweet  vows, 

Dropped  from  the  hand  of  some  wan  worshipper  : 
And  there  is  life  among  the  apple  blooms 

Of  whisp'ring  winds  ;  as  if  a  god  addressed 
The  flamen  from  the  sanctuary  glooms 

With   secrets   of   the    bourne    that    hope    hath 

guessed, 

Saying  :     "  Behold  !  a  darkness  which  illumes, 
A  waking  which  is  rest." 


2. 

There  is  a  blackness  in  the  apple  trees 
Of  tempest ;  like  the  ashes  of  an  urn 


SIBYLLINE.  77 

Hurt  hands  have  gathered  upon  blistered  knees, 
With  salt  of  tears,  out  of  the  flames  that  burn  : 

And  there  is  death  among  the  blooms,  that  fill 
The  night  with  breathless  scent, — as  when,  above 

The  priest,  the  vision  of  his  faith  doth  will 

Forth  from  his  soul  the  beautiful  form  thereof, — 

Saying  :     "  Behold  !  a  silence  never  still  ; 
The  other  form  of  love." 


78       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


LETHE, 
i. 

THERE  is  a  scent  of  roses  and  spilt  wine 
Between     the     moonlight    and    the    laurel 

coppice  ; 
The  marble  idol  glimmers  on  its  shrine, 

White  as  a  star,  among  a  heaven  of  poppies. 
Here  all  my  life  lies  like  a  spilth  of  wine. 
There  is  a  mouth  of  music  like  a  lute, 

A  nightingale  that  singeth  to  one  flower  ; 
Between  the  falling  flower  and  the  fruit, 
Where  love  hath  died,  the  music  of  an  hour. 

2. 

To  sit  alone  with  memory  and  a  rose  ; 

To  dwell  with  shadows  of  whilom  romances  ; 
To  make  one  hour  of  a  year  of  woes, 

And  walk  on  starlight,  in  ethereal  trances, 


LETHE.  79 

With  one  fair  face  white  as  a  moon-white  rose  : 
To  win  from  music's  body  and  the  bud's 

A  spirit  and  an  essence  of  sweet  fire, 
Between  the  heart-beat's  burning  and  the  blood's, 

Is  part  of  love  and  of  the  dream's  desire. 


There  is  a  song  to  silence  and  the  stars 

From  virgin  lips  a  first  love's  passion  parches  ; 
And  down  the  stream  of  night,  like  nenuphars, 

The  tossing  fires  of  their  cedar  torches. 
Here  all  my  life  dreams  lonely  as  the  stars. 
Shall  not  one  hour  of  all  those  hours  suffice 

For  resignation,  God  hath  given  as  dower  ? 
Between  the  summons  and  the  sacrifice 

One  hour  of  love,  th'  eternity  of  an  hour  ? 


The  shrine  is  shattered  and  the  bird  is  gone  ; 

Dark  is  the  house  of  music  and  of  bridal ; 
The  stars  are  stricken  and  the  storm  sweeps  on  ; 

White,  'neath  a  wreck  of  roses,  lies  the  idol, 


8O       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Sad  as  the  memory  of  a  joy  that 's  gone  : 
To  dwell  with  slumber  while  the  fingers  kiss 

To  dreams  one  last  chord  of  love's  broken  lyre, 
Between  remembering  and  forgetting,  this 

Is  part  of  life  and  of  the  world's  desire. 


LOTUS.  8 1 


LOTUS. 

WHERE  is  the  vale  and  mountain, 
And  where  the  rock  and  stream, 
That  held  one  life  of  music, 
Another  life  of  gleam  ; 
Where  she  and  I  were  shadows 
And  all  our  world,  a  dream  ? 

A  thousand  spells  for  waking, 

And  only  two  for  sleep  : 
The  first  of  these  is  sorrow 

Of  love  that  can  not  weep  : 
The  other  one  is  terror 

Of  love  no  man  would  keep. 

And  was  it  in  the  valley, 

Where  all  the  sad  wind  saith, 
Is  "  I  am  weary,  weary," 

That  I  heard  her  whisper,  "  Death  "  ? 


82       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

As  if  upon  pale  eyelids 

The  Beautiful  breathed  its  breath. 

There  was  no  tomb  before  us, 

Nor  any  stone  to  tell 
Of  love,  or  hate,  or  horror 

In  heaven  or  in  hell — 
But  on  her  lips  the  legend, 

And  in  her  eyes  the  spell. 

And  was  it  on  the  mountain, 
The  stealthy  stars  have  crossed 

To  stand  austere  with  silence, 

That  I  heard  her  murmur,  "  Lost "  ? 

As  if  dark  eyes  one  moment 
The  Terrible  should  accost. 

There  was  no  memoried  presence 

Of  flower  or  star  or  bird 
To  tell  of  tears  and  parting 

That  heartbreak  once  had  heard — 
But  in  her  face  the  vision, 

And  in  her  heart  the  word. 


LOTUS.  83 

Where  is  the  vale  and  mountain, 
And  where  the  rock  and  stream, 

That  held  one  life  of  music, 
Another  life  of  gleam, 

Where  she  and  I  were  shadows 
And  all  our  world,  a  dream  ? 


84       INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


MOLY. 

WHEN  by  the  wall  the  tiger-flower  swings 
A  head  of  sultry  slumber  and  aroma ; 
And  by  the   path,  whereon   the  blown 

rose  flings 

Its  obsolete  beauty,  the  long  lilies  foam  a 
White  place  of  perfume,  like  a  beautiful  breast  ; 
Between  the  pansy  fire  of  the  west, 
And  poppy  mist  of  moonrise  in  the  east, 
This  heartache  will  have  ceased. 

The  witchcraft  of  soft  music  and  sweet  sleep — 
Let  it  beguile  the  burthen  from  my  spirit, 

And  white  dreams  reap  me,  as  strong  reapers  reap 
The  golden  grain  and  gorgeous  blossom  near  it ; 

Let  me  behold  how  gladness  gives  the  whole 

The  transformed  countenance  of  my  own  soul  ; 

Between  the  sunset  and  the  risen  moon, 
Let  sorrow  vanish  soon. 


MOLY.  85 

And  these  things  then  shall  keep  me  company  : 
The  eye-glance  of  the  dew  ;  the  look  and  laughter 

Of  flower  and  bird  ;  the  soul  and  sorcery 
Of  every  wind  and  water  reaching  after 

The  secret  of  the  stars,  to  glass  a  guess  ; 

These  of  themselves  shall  shape  my  happiness, 

A  visible  presence  I  shall  lean  upon, 
Feeling  that  care  is  gone. 

Forgetting  how  the  cankered  flower  must  die  ; 

The  unripe  fruit  fall,  sicklied  to  its  syrup  ; 
How  joy,  begotten  'twixt  a  sigh  and  sigh, 

Waits  with  one  foot  forever  in  the  stirrup  ; — 
Remembering  how  within  the  hollow  lute 
Soft  music  sleeps  when  music's  voice  is  mute  ; 
And  in  the  heart,  when  all  seems  wild  despair, 
Hope  still  sits  waiting  there. 


86        INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


POPPY  AND  MANDRAGORA. 


L 


IFE  shall  not  keep  me  here  : 

Here  there  is  sadness  in   the  early 

year; 

Here  sorrow  comes  where  joy  went  laughing  late  ; 
The  sicklied  face  of  heaven  hangs  like  hate 
Above  the  woodland  and  the  meadow  land  ; 
And  Spring  hath  taken  fire  in  her  hand 
Of  frost  and  made  a  dead  bloom  of  her  face, 
Which  was  a  flower  of  chastity  and  grace, 
And  light's  serenest  fragrance  long  ago. 
Life  shall  not  keep  me,  no ! 

I  shall  go  far  away 
Into  the  sunrise  of  a  calmer  day  : 
Where  all  the  nights  resign  them  to  the  moon, 
And  drug  their  hearts  with  odor  and  soft  tune, 
And  speak  dim  dreams  in  starlight  ;   where   the 
hours 


POPPY  AND  MANDRAGORA.  87 

Teach  immortality  with  fadeless  flowers  ; 
And  all  the  day  the  bee  delights  the  bloom, 
And  all  the  night  the  moth  spills  strange  perfume 
From  bell  and  bugle,  like  an  influence. 
I  shall  go  far  from  hence. 

Why  should  I  sit  and  weep, 
And  yearn  with  heavy  eyelids  still  to  sleep  ? 
Forever  hiding  from  my  heart  the  fate, 
Death  within  death,  life  doth  accumulate, 
Like  winter  snows,  along  the  barren  leas 
And  sterile  hills,  whereon  no  lover  sees 
The  crocus  limn  the  beautiful  in  flame  ; 
The  hyacinth  and  jonquil  write  the  name 
Of  God  in  fire,  with  a  certain  eye. 

Why  should  I  sit  and  sigh  ? 

I  will  not  stay  and  long, 
Here  where  my  soul  is  wasting  for  a  song ; 
Where  no  bird  sings  ;  and  far  beneath  the  stars 
No  silver  water  strikes  melodious  bars  ; 
And  in  the  rocks  and  forest-haggard  hills 
No  quick-tongued  echo  from  her  grotto  fills 


88       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

With  eery  syllables  the  solitude — 
The  vocal  image  of  the  voice  which  wooed — 
She,  of  sweet  sound  the  elfin  looking-glass, 
Sick  with  life's  sad  Alas  ! 

What  should  I  say  to  her  ? 
A  hollow-eyed,  a  sad-faced  wanderer, 
Love  looks  not  on,  nor  gives  one  thought  unto  : — 
Love,  busy  with  the  birth  of  bud  and  dew, 
And  vague  gold  wings  within  the  chrysalis  ; 
Who  will  not  miss  me,  nor  the  timid  kiss 
She  knew  not  of,  who  had  no  kiss  for  me 
Who  gave  my  heart  to  her  in  poesy, 
A  gift  of  love,  a  boon  of  burgeoning. 

What  should  I  say  or  sing  ? 

I  shall  go  far  away. 

She  will  not  care,  who  murders  thus  my  day 
With  the  dark  daggers  of  neglectful  eyes, 
Lips'  sword  of  silence  !  .  .  .     Had  she  sighed  me 

lies, 

Not  passionate,  yet  falsely  tremulous  ; 
And  lent  her  mouth  to  mine,  in  mockery  ;  thus 


POPPY  AND  MANDRAGORA.  89 

Smiled  from  calm  eyes  a  scornful  negative  ; 
Then,  then  my  heart  had  taught  itself  to  live, 
Feeding  its  love  on  her  indifference. 
But  no  ! — and  I  will  hence. 

So  be  the  Bible  shut 
Of  all  her  beauty,  and  her  wisdom  but 
A  clasp  of  memory  !     I  shall  not  seek 
The  light  that  came  not  when  the  soul  was  weak 
With  waiting,  and  the  darkness  gave  no  sign 
Of  star-born  comfort.     Nay  !  why  should  I  pine 
For  psalms  of  patience  and  hosannas  of 
Sad  hope  and  dreary  canticles  of  love  ? — 
Leave  me  alone.     My  soul  hath  long  supposed 

For  me  God's  book  was  closed. 


QO       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


NIGHTSHADE. 


SINCE  she  hath  lifted  up  my  face  to  hers, 
And  kissed  the  lips  of  worship  she  denied, 

There  is  no  mouth  of  verse, 
Here  in  the  shadow  of  the  crucified, 
Or  voice  of  love,  to  tell  her  mine  hath  died, 

To  tell  her  and  to  curse  ! — 
She  asks  me  now  for  flowers  that  are  ashes, 

Here  where  the  red  flow'r  of  my  life  lies  slain  ; 
For  love,  that  lashed  me  once  and  now  that  lashes 
Itself  in  vain. 

n. 

Since  she  hath  gazed  into  mine  eyes  and  said, 
"  Beloved,  look  thou  in  my  soul  and  see," 

And  I  have  looked  and  read 
The  burthen  of  a  kindred  Calvary, 


NIGHTSHADE.  91 

I  am  grown  glad  that  this  hath  come  to  be 
Between  the  quick  and  dead. — 

She  asks  me  now  for  songs,  that  only  falter, 
Here  where  the  music  of  my  life  is  hushed  ; 

For  love,  that  died  upon  the  iron  altar 
Where  hers  lies  crushed. 


in. 

Since  she  hath  touched  hot  lips  to  mine  and  wept, 
From  out  the  hell  of  her  own  soul,  fierce  tears, 

Each  little  look  love  kept 
Of  her  disdain,  unknowingly  these  years, 
And  word  of  scorn,  is  crier  at  mine  ears 

To  wake  the  hate  that  slept. — 
She  asks  me  now  for  water  that  shall  cherish, 
When  hot  sands  choke  my  life's  dry  fountain- 
head  ; 

For  love,  that  stirs  not  though   her   love  should 
perish 

Where  mine  lies  dead. 


Q2       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


ROSEMARY. 

I. 

SHE  shall  but  breathe  her  wild  breath  in  my 
face, 
She  shall  but  shake  her  wild  hair  past  mine 

eyes, 

When  life  sits  tearless  in  grief's  sunless  cham 
ber  ; 

And  through  the  fire  of  revealing  space, 
The  marvel  of  her  love  shall  bid  me  rise 
And  claim  her. 

n. 

This  shall  not  be  until  within  my  soul 

Joy's  voice  is  dumb,  and  broke  the  instrument, 

And  love  lies  dead  beside  one  withered  flower  ; 
And  dark  the  windows  of  the  home  of  dole — 
Whence  the  last  flicker  of  life's  taper  went — 
Shall  tower. 


ROSEMARY.  93 

III. 

She  shall  but  bend  her  open  eyes  on  mine, 
She  shall  but  lend  one  open  thought  to  me, 
When  life  sits  sleepless   in   sleep's  caverned 

hollow  ; 

And  in  the  night  a  sudden  star  shall  shine, 
And  love  shall  rise  in  whiter  mystery 
And  follow. 

IV. 

This  shall  not  be  until  within  my  heart 

Hope's  lips  are  still,  and  song  that  suffereth, 

And  love  lies  dead  beside  his  silent  numbers  ; 
And  in  the  halls  of  silence,  all  apart, 

Oblivion  sits  with  the  dead  face  of  death 
And  slumbers. 


94      INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


AT  TWILIGHT. 

ONCE  more  she  holds  me  with  her  pensive 
eyes, 

Once  more  I  feel  her  voice's  witchery 
Within  my  heart  unfountain  tears  and  sighs, 
And  fill  the  soul  of  me. 

Once  more  she  bends  a  silent  face  above  ; 

Once  more  I  feel  her  hands'  soft  touches  shake 
My  life,  unbinding  long-imprisoned  love, 
Bidding  my  lost  dreams  wake. 

Once  more  I  see  her  serious  smile  ;  and  touch 
Once  more  the  lips  of  her  whose  kisses  say — 
"  The  night  was  long,  and  thou  hast  suffered  much  : 
At  last,  dear  heart,  't  is  day  !  " 


DA  Y  AND  NIGHT.  95 


DAY  AND  NIGHT. 

THEY  say  to  me,  the  days  are  not  so  far  off 
When  she  will  come  and  stay  a  day  with  me, 
A  day  of  dreams,  till  twilight's  lonely  star,  off 
The  old-time  hills,  dips  dewy  to  the  sea. 

Ah,  no !  not  this  ! — One  night,  that  gave  its  soul  of 
Calm  beauty  to  the  earth  !  as  she  did  give 

Her  love's  white  starlight  to  the  rugged  whole  of 
My  haggard  world  and  bade  me  see  and  live. 

I  want  no  days  !  when  all  my  soul  recalls  but 
The  revelations  of  the  midnight  sky  ! 

No  days  !  whose  hours  are  as  narrow  walls, — but 
Of  whiter  shadow, — where  we  toil  and  die. 

The  day  is  error's  :  it  can  but  deceive  us 

With  shows  of  Earth,  blind  with  the  primal  curse. 

The  night  is  truth's  :  its  myriad  fires  weave  us 
The  thoughts  of  God,  the  visible  universe. 


INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


I 


REVELATION. 
WRITE  these  things  that  men  may  hear. 


This  was  the  word  that  gave  me  cheer  : 
There  sate  a  daemon  at  mine  ear, 
Who  whispered  me,  "  Man  knoweth  naught — 
First  know  thyself  wouldst  thou  know  aught." 

This  was  the  word  that  brought  me  grace  : 
There  fell  a  shape  before  my  face, 
Who  motioned  me,  "  All  forms  are  sin's — 
He  aims  above  himself  who  wins." 

This  was  the  word  that  made  me  wise  : 
There  stood  an  angel  at  mine  eyes, 
Who  looked,  "  The  world  lives  selfishly— 
Give  thy  own  self  if  thou  wouldst  see." 

These  are  the  words  they  brought  to  me. 


SYMBOLIC.  97 


SYMBOLIC. 

r  I  "*HE  trees  before  the  coming  storm 

Leap,  mad  as  shrieking  Corybants 
Who  toss  to  Cybele  an  arm 
Of  rapture,  and  a  face  that  pants 
Through  hair  the  ritual  frenzy  slants. 

Vague,  stormy  shapes  of  tempest  sit, 
August,  majestic  and  immense, 

Beneath  the  stars  ;  as,  levin-lit, 
A  god  might  give  wild  audience 
To  awe  and  night  and  violence. 

Storm  is  her  signet ;  hers,  who  writes 
Stern  laws  in  lightning  ;  shadowy, 

With  thunder  seals  the  rolled-out  nights, 
And  sits  in  terrible  mystery, 
The  mountain-crowned  Cybele. 


98       INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


ARGONAUTS. 

WITH  argosies  of  dawn  he  sails, 
And  triremes  of  the  dusk, 
The  Seas  of  Song,  whereon  the  gales 
Are  summers  breathing  musk. 

He  hears  the  hail  of  Siren  bands 
On  headlands  sunset-kissed  ; 

The  Lotus-eaters  wave  pale  hands 
Within  a  land  of  mist. 

For  many  a  league  he  hears  the  roar 

Of  the  Symplegades  ; 
And  through  the  far  foam  of  its  shore 

The  Isle  of  Circe  sees. 

All  day  he  looks  with  hazy  lids 
As  sea-gods  cleave  the  deep  ; 

All  night  he  hears  the  Nereids 
Sing  their  wild  eyes  to  sleep. 


ARC  ON  A  UTS.  99 

When  heaven  thunders  overhead, 

And  hell  upheaves  the  vast, 
Dim  faces  of  the  ocean's  dead 

Mock  him  from  every  mast. 

He  but  repeats  the  oracle 

That  bade  him  first  set  sail  ; 
And  cheers  his  soul  with,  "  It  is  well  ! 

Go  on  !  I  shall  not  fail  !  " 

Behold  !  he  sails  no  earthly  barque, 

And  on  no  earthly  sea  ; 
Adown  the  years  he  sails  the  dark 

Deeps  of  futurity. 

Ideals  are  the  ships  of  Greece 

His  purpose  steers  afar  ; 
The  skies,  his  seas  ;  the  Golden  Fleece 

He  seeks,  the  farthest  star. 


100    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


T 


THE  KNIGHT-ERRANT. 

HE  witch-elm  shivers  in  the  gale, 
The  thorn-tree's  top  is  bowed  ; 
The  night  is  black  with  rain  and  hail, 
And  mist  and  cloud. 


The  winds,  upon  the  woods  and  fields, 

Are  swords  two  fiends  unsheathe, 
Two  fiends,  that  snarl  behind  their  shields 
And  grind  their  teeth. 

The  fox-fire,  in  a  haunted  place, 

As  I  ride  on  and  on, 
Gleams  like  a  sudden  dead-man's  face 
And  then  is  gone. 

The  owl  shrieks  from  the  splintered  pine 

Demonic  ridicule  ; 
I  hear  the  wild  wolf  howl  and  whine 
And  splash  the  pool. 


THE  KNIGHT-ERRANT.  IOI 

Black  bats  beat  blindly  by  my  eyes 
Like  death's  own  horrible  hands  ; 
The  quest  leads  under  hideous  skies 
To  hideous  lands. 

I  ride  with  fire  upon  my  casque, 

And  fire  upon  my  spear, 
The  roadway  of  my  soul-set  task, 
And  know  no  fear. 

Song  steels  the  sinews  of  my  steed, 
And  tempers  my  straight  sword  ; 
I  ride  the  causeway  of  my  creed 
Without  a  word. 

No  man  shall  make  the  iron  pause 

In  gauntlet  and  in  thew  ; 
I  ride  the  highway  of  God's  cause 
To  die  or  do. 

My  purpose  leads  me,  like  a  flame, 

'Mid  wisps  that  haunt  the  fen, 
To  castle  walls  of  wrong  and  shame 
And  blood-fed  men. 


102     INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Faith's  are  the  lips  that  wind  the  horn 

Before  the  gates  of  lust  ; 
Though  fifty  dragons  hiss  it  scorn, 
Still  shall  it  trust. 

Truth's  is  the  hand  that  thunders  at 

The  entrances  of  night ; 
Though  ten  score  devils  dash  it  flat, 
Still  shall  it  fight. 

Love's  are  the  eyes  whose  might  shall  thrill 

The  portals  vast  of  sin  ; 
A  thousand  deaths  may  rise  to  kill, 
Still  shall  it  win. 


IN  SHADOW.  IO3 


IN  SHADOW. 


A  MOTH  sucks  in  a  flaming  flower  : 
The  moon  beams  on  the  old  church-tower 
I  watch  the  moth  and  waning  moon — 
A  moth-white  slip — 
One  silver  tip 

In  ghostly  tree-tops,  drifting  soon 
To  gleam  above  the  church  an  hour. 

II. 

The  gray  moth  on  the  dewy  pod 
Dreams  ;  and  the  sleepy  poppies  nod 
Their  drugged  heads  in  the  balmy  breeze, 
That  loves  to  sing 
Of  wave  and  wing, 
And,  drowsing  in  the  purple  trees, 
Drops  snowy  petals  on  the  sod. 


IO4    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 
III. 

My  soul  dreams  at  life's  blood-red  heart 
Of  that  thou  art  ;  of  thee,  who  art 
All  silence  ;  saying  something  rare 
As  spirits  know 
When  lilies  blow 

Beneath  sweet  heaven  ; — phantom-fair, 
The  beauty  thou  hast  grown  a  part. 

IV. 

My  soul  is  sad  as  any  bloom 
The  moonlight  haunts  beside  a  tomb  ; 
So  very  weary  with  the  love 

No  words  may  speak — 
Oh,  wild  and  weak  ! — 
Here  where  thy  tombstone's  marble  dove 
Makes  of  the  moonlight  plaintive  gloom. 


LEGENDARY.  105 


LEGENDARY. 


IT  was  a  gipsy  maiden 
Within  the  forest  green  ; 
It  was  a  gipsy  maiden 
Who  shook  a  tambourine  : 
The  star  of  eve  had  not  the  face, 
The  woodland  wind  had  not  the  grace 
Of  Flamencine. 

n. 

Her  bodice  was  of  purple, 

Her  shoes  of  satin  sheen  ; 
Her  bodice  was  of  purple 

With  scarlet  laid  between  : 
The  dew  of  dusk  was  in  the  tread, 
The  black  of  night  was  on  the  head 
Of  Flamencine. 


106    INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 
III. 

Among  the  dreaming  vistas, 
The  darkling  dells  between, 

Among  the  dreaming  vistas 
I  heard  her  tambourine  : 

And  far  within  the  ghostly  glade 

The  moonbeams  and  the  shadows  play'd 
Round  Flamencine. 

IV. 

Among  the  beechen  shadows 

When  fire-flies  are  seen, 
Among  the  beechen  shadows 

When  glow-worms  glimmer  green, 
Then  down  the  darkness  like  a  light 
She  dances ;  and  the  eyes  are  bright 
Of  Flamencine. 

v. 

There  is  a  gipsy  maiden 
Within  the  forest  green  ; 


LEG. 


y. 


107 


There  is  a  gipsy  maiden 

Who  shakes  a  tambourine  : 
These  many  years  I  am  her  slave  ; — 
The  violets  grow  upon  the  grave 
Of  Flamencine. 


108    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


THE  MILL  WATER. 

THE  water-flag  and  wild  cane  grows 
Round  banks  whereon  the  sunlight  sows 
Fantastic  gold  when,  on  its  shores, 
The  wind  sighs  through  the  sycamores. 

In  one  green  angle,  just  in  reach, 
Between  a  willow-tree  and  beech, 
Moss-grown  and  leaky  lies  a  boat 
The  thick-grown  lilies  keep  afloat. 

And  where  the  wild-grapes  build  a  brake 
Still  swims  the  spotted  water-snake  ; 
And  from  the  hills,  a  gray  blue  streak 
Soars  down  the  gaunt  fly-up-the-creek. 

Between  the  lily-pads  and  blooms 
The  water-spirits  set  their  looms, 
To  weave  the  restless  lace  that  dims 
The  glimmering  leaves  of  under  limbs. 


THE  MILL   WATER.  1 09 

Each  lily  is  the  hiding  place 
Of  some  gray  witch-thing's  elfish  face, 
That  watches  you  with  gold-green  eyes 
Where  bubbles  of  its  breathing  rise. 

I  fancy,  when  the  waxing  moon 
Leans  through  the  trees  and  dreams  of  June  ; 
And  when  the  black  bat  slants  its  wing, 
And  lonelier  the  green-frogs  sing  ; 

I  fancy,  when  the  whippoorwill 
In  some  old  tree  sings  wild  and  shrill, 
With  glow-worm  eyes  that  dot  the  dark, — 
Each  holding  high  a  firefly  spark 

To  torch  its  way, — the  witch-things  come  : 
And  some  float  rocking  here  ;  and  some 
Unmoor  the  lily  leaves  and  oar 
Around  the  old  boat  on  the  shore. 

They  climb  through  oozy  weeds  and  moss  ; 
They  swarm  its  rotting  sides  and  toss 
Their  firefly  torches  o'er  its  edge, 
Or  hang  them  in  the  tangled  sedge. 


IIO    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

The  boat  is  loosed.     The  moon  is  pale. 
Around  the  dam  they  slowly  sail. 
Upon  the  bow,  to  pilot  it, 
A  ghastly  will-o'-the-wisp  doth  sit. 

And  have  I  seen  it  all  in  dreams  ? 
Or  more  ?  forgotten  ! — For,  it  seems, 
Beneath  the  stern    .    .    .    what  saw  I  there  ?- 
A  woman's  face  with  weedy  hair  ! 


EIDOLONS.  1 1 1 


EIDOLONS. 

THE  white  moth-mullein  thrust  its  slim 
Cool,  fairy  flowers  around  his  knee  ; 
In  places  where  the  way  lay  dim 

The  tree-tops,  arching  suddenly, 
Made  tomb-like  mystery  for  him. 

The  wild-rose  and  the  elder,  drenched 
With  rain,  perfumed  a  misty  place, — 

As  if  the  ghost  of  sorrow  blenched 
Pale  raiment  fragrant  past  his  face, 

Who  walked  with  white  lips  closed  and  clenched. 

And  far  within  the  forest,  where 

Weird  shadows  stood  like  murdered  men, 

And  where  the  ground-hog  dug  its  lair, 
The  she-fox  whelped  and  had  its  den, — 

Was  it  his  own  voice  crying  there  ? 


112     INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

One  dead  trunk,  like  a  ruined  tower, 

Dark  green  with  toppling  trailers,  shoved 

Its  wild  wreck  o'er  the  brush  ;  one  bower 

Looked  like  a  dead  knight  casqued  and  gloved 

In  starlit  steel  that  haunted  hour. 

Now,  near,  the  strange  voice  spake  him  ;  thin 

As  echoes  of  a  thought  that  sings 
To  sleep  ;  and,  sitting  with  his  chin 

Upon  his  palm — was  it  the  wings 
Of  owls  that  shuddered  out  and  in  ? 

And  now  the  voice  was  still ;  and  slow, 
With  eyes  that  stared  on  naught  but  night, 

He  looked  and  saw — what  none  shall  know  ! 
His  soul's  reflection,  wild  and  white  ? 

Or  form  of  immaterial  woe  ? 

And  men  who  found  him, — weary  led 
By  the  wild  fox,— within  that  place 

Saw  in  his  staring  eyes,  't  is  said, 
The  thing  he  met  there  face  to  face, 

The  thing  that  left  him  sitting  dead. 


UNDER  DARK  SKIES.  113 


UNDER  DARK  SKIES. 


HILLS  rolled  in  woods,  that  lair  the  owl  and 
fox; 

Harsh  fields,  that  fall  before  the  woods' advance 
As  wild-men  fly  from  hunters,  tossing  locks 

Through  which  their  eyes  of  yellow  fire  glance  ; 
Great  blurs  of  briers  and  lugubrious  rocks, — 
Like  crumbled  blackness, — with  a  pool  beneath, 
Whereon  the  wisps,  like  something  evil,  dance  ; 
And  then  a  house,  like  the  wrecked  face  of  death. 

ii. 
There  where  the  moon  hangs  sinister,  o'er  parched 

And  haggard  thorns, — a  golden  battle-bow, 
Or  shield  of  bronze,  God's  wars  have  scarred  and 

scorched, — 

What  crime  hath  cursed  it     ...     who  shall 
ever  know  ? 


114    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

— Night    only !     Night    with    eyeless    eyes,    who 

torched 

And  felt  the  stigma  of  its  branded  sod, 
As  from  the  pool  a  ghastly  face  rose  slow 
Beneath  the  storm  and  rushing  fire  of  God. 


THE  SECRET.  115 


THE  SECRET. 

SHE  stands  within  the  stormy  glow 
Of  sunset,  with  a  face  of  snow, 
The  white  embodiment  of  woe, 
As  night  comes  on. 

She  stands   within  the  sombre  glare 
Of  dusk,  with  dark  neglected  hair, 
An  apparition  of  despair, 

When  day  is  gone. 

The  hideous  house  within  the  vale 
Looks  spectral  as  a  ragged  sail 
The  Dutchman  hoists  against  the  gale 
On  haunted  seas. 

And  in  the  garden, — one  vast  brake 
Of  dock  and  thistle, — snail  and  snake 
Crawl ;  and  the  death-watch  lies  awake 
Among  the  trees. 


Il6    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

The  stagnant  stream  along  the  night 
Creeps,  like  a  nightmare,  where  each  white 
Lily  seems  an  uneasy  light 
By  goblins  tossed. 

And  through  the  cypress-trees  and  vines 
The  red-fox  skulks  and  laps  and  whines  ; 
The  owl  hoots,  and  its  eyeball  shines 
In  darkness  lost. 

She  stands  beside  the  sleepy  stream  ; 
Her  garment  drips  at  every  seam  ; 
She  seems  a  shadow  in  a  dream 
Of  death  and  woe. 

No  star  stares  half  so  steadily 
On  earth  as  in  the  stream  stares  she  ; 
And  what  she  sees  there,  it  may  be 
The  owls — they  know. 


PHANTOMS.  117 


T 


PHANTOMS. 

HIS  was  her  home  ;  one  mossy  gable  thrust 
Above  the  cedars  and  the  locust  trees  : 

This  was  her  home,  whose  beauty  now  is  dust, 
A  lonely  memory  for  melodies 
The  wild  birds  sing,  the  wild  birds  and  the  bees. 

Here  every  evening  is  a  prayer  :  no  boast 

Or  ruin  of  sunset  makes  the  wan  world  wroth  ; 

Where,  through  the  twilight,  like  a  pale   flower's 

ghost, 

A  drowsy  flutter,  flies  the  tiger-moth  ; 
And  dusk  spreads  darkness  like  a  dewy  cloth. 

In  vagabond  velvet,  all  the  placid  day, 
A  stain  of  crimson,  lolled  the  butterfly  ; 

The  south-wind  sowed  with  ripple  and  with  ray 
The  pleasant  waters  ;  and  the  gentle  sky 
Looked  on  his  gladness  like  a  quiet  eye. 


Il8    INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Its  melancholy  quaver,  lone  and  low, 
The  gray  tree-toad  at  gloaming  will  repeat ; 

The  whippoorwill,  far  in  the  afterglow, 

Complain  to  silence  ;  and  the  lightning  beat, 
In  one  still  cloud,  glimmers  of  golden  heat. 

He  comes  not  yet.     Not  till  the  dusk  be  dead, 
And  all  the  western  glow  be  far  withdrawn  ; 

Not  till, — a  sleepy  mouth  love's  kiss  makes  red, — 
The  baby  bud  opes  in  a  rosy  yawn, 
Breathing  sweet  guesses  at  the  dreamed-of  dawn. 

When  in  the  shadows,  like  a  rain  of  gold, 
The  fire-flies  stream  steadily  ;  and  bright 

Along  the  moss  the  glow-worm,  as  of  old, 
A  crawling  sparkle — like  a  crooked  light 
In  smoldering  vellum — scrawls  a  square  of  night : 

Then,  ghost  of  his  dead  love  !  dost  lean  to  him, 
Within  a  space  that  hath  not  any  place, 

Between  the  starlight  and  his  eyes  ;  so  dim 
With  suave  control  and  soul-compelling  grace, 
He  can  not  help  but  see  thee,  face  to  face. 


THREE  BIRDS.  119 


A 


THREE  BIRDS. 

RED-BIRD  sang  upon  the  bough 
When  wind-flowers  nodded  in  the  dew  ; 
My  spring  of  bird  and  flower  wast  thou, 
O  tried  and  true  ! 


A  brown  bird  warbled  on  the  wing 

When  poppy  buds  were  hearts  of  heat  ; 
I  wooed  thee  with  a  golden  ring, 
O  sad  and  sweet ! 

A  black-bird  twittered  in  the  mist 

When  nightshade  blooms  were  filled  with  frost  ; 
The  leaves  upon  thy  grave  are  whist, 
O  loved  and  lost  ! 


120    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


I 


IDENTITIES. 

SAT  alone  in  the  manor  room 

Of  beautiful  Sin  in  her  winding  shroud  ; 

The  night  was  stricken  with  glare  and  gloom, 

And  the  haunted  wind  was  loud. 


I  heard  the  gallop  of  one  who  rode 

Like    the    sough   of   leaves   that   the  rain-wind 

crisps  ; 

The  night  with  the  speed  of  her  steed  was  sowed 
With  streaming  will-o'-the-wisps. 

And  it  cried  in  me,  "  '  T  is  a  long-lost  Shame, 
Who  rides  to  thy  house  through  the  night  and 

rain  ! 

She  will  blaze  in  the  blackness  a  face  of  flame 
When  she  opens  thy  door  again  ! " 

I  thought  of  the  blame  of  her  lips  and  brow  ; 
And  stared  at  the  door  she  must  enter  in 


IDENTITIES.  121 

To  sear  my  soul  with  her  eyes,  and  bow 
My  heart  by  the  corpse  of  Sin. 

As  hushed  as  the  mansion  of  death  was  night, 

When,  dark  as  a  sob  of  the  storm,  she  came— 
But  her  face,  like  beautiful  Sin's,  was  white, 
And  her  face  and  Sin's — the  same  ! 


122    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


A  VISION. 

(AS   IT    WAS   GIVEN    TO    ME   IN    SLEEP.) 


I. 


STARLESS  and  still  and  lustreless 
And  sombre  black,  it  seemed  to  me, 
The  heaven  hung  in  hideousness 
Of  Hell's  serenity. 
Indefinite  and  vague  and  old 

As  nothing  that  is  ours, 
It  rose  with  steeples,  dark  with  mold, 
Like  two  colossal  towers. 


n. 


Infernal  monsters  crumbled  'mid 
The  trefoils  of  its  dim  fa9ade, 


A   VISION.  123 

And,  hideous  as  murder,  hid 

Gnarled  in  the  pillared  shade. 
And  all  below  and  overhead, 

In  cancerous  blotches,  grew 
The  gray  gangrene  of  lichens  dead, 

And  fungi,  sickly  blue. 

ill. 

Beneath  the  black  impending  skies, 

Weird  as  Death's  countenance  it  stood, 
Hollow,  with  vacant  window  eyes 

Staring  on  solitude. 
The  grass  was  black  ;  the  gravestones  white  ; 

A  weary  white  were  they  ; 
And  league  on  league  along  the  night 

Like  phantoms  stretched  away. 


IV. 


And  I,  who  entered  in,  could  hear 
No  organ  notes  resound  and  roll  ; 


124    INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

The  presence  of  an  awful  fear 
Stood  unseen  near  my  soul. 

And,  lo  !  I  saw,  like  Hell's  wild  songs, 
The  vast  interior  carved 

With  stony  shapes  of  women  throngs, 
Naked,  obscene,  and  starved. 


v. 

Medusa  mouths  and  Harpy  hands, 

Dead  eyes,  in  which  the  Graeae  nod  ; 
Like  idols,  wherein  heathen  lands 

Image  the  plague's  black  god. 
Round  arched  door  and  window-frame, 

On  floor  and  vault,  behold, 
The  chiselled  forms  were  all  the  same  ! 

Gray  with  exuding  mold. 


VI. 


And  I,  who  entered  in,  unled, 

Could  hear  no  sweet  voice  lift  the  hymn  ; 


A   VISION.  125 

But  felt  th'  effluvia  of  the  dead 

Around  my  senses  swim — 
Miasms,  that  rotted  from  their  waves 

This  horrible  eminence, 
Where,  throned  upon  a  thousand  graves, 

Death  dreams  of  pestilence. 


126    INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


THE   NORMAN  KNIGHT. 

WITHIN  the  castle  chamber 
The  Norman  knight  lay  dead  ; 
The  quarterings  of  the  casement 
Shone  holy  round  his  head. 

And  first  there  came  a  maiden  ; 

Her  face  was  wet  and  white  ; 
She  kissed  his  mouth  and  murmured, 

"  Thou  wast  my  own  true  knight." 

Within  the  arrased  chamber 
The  Norman  knight  lay  dead  ; 

And  tapers  four  and  twenty 
Burnt  at  his  feet  and  head. 

And  next  there  came  a  friar 
And  prayed  beside  his  bier  ; 

"  Thou  art  a  blessed  angel, 
Who  wast  so  noble  here." 


THE  NORMAN  KNIGHT.  I2/ 

Within  the  lofty  chamber 

The  Norman  knight  lay  dead  ; 

Dim  through  the  carven  casement 
The  moonbeams  lit  his  head. 

And  then  there  came  a  varlet — 
Loud  laughed  he  in  his  face  : 

"  Thus  do  I  spit  upon  thee, 
Thee  and  thy  cursed  race  !  " 

Within  the  silent  chamber 

The  Norman  knight  lay  dead — 

Nor  Norman  knight  nor  Saxon  serf 
Heard  what  the  dead  man  said. 


128    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


THE  SALAMANDER. 
(LOVE  DAEMONIC.) 

ONCE  she  breathed  upon  my  eyes, 
Touched  the  soul  that  dreamed  within 
me  ; 

All  the  magic  that  might  win  me 
Whispered  to  my  heart  with  sighs — 
Darkness  can  not  make  them  lies  !     .     .     . 

Bring  me  moly,  hellebore  ! 
Mix  them  for  my  soul's  nepenthe, 
For  my  spirit's  dread  Amenti, 

For  the  curse  which  comes  once  more 
With  unutterable  lore  ! 

Sunlight,  starlight  or  the  moon, 
Stormlight,  firelight  or  the  sheening 
Witchlight,  realize  no  meaning 

Of  her  glory's  plenilune  ; 


THE  SALAMANDER.  1 29 

Of  her  self's  unriddled  rune, 
And  most  awful  beauty  !  nor 

Actual,  nor  yet  ideal  ! — 

Mortal  and  immortal  real ! 

Of  the  red  heat,  of  the  star, 

And  no  part  of  what  these  are  ! — 

I  am  hers  and— woe  is  mine  ! 
Has  she  drugged  me  with  the  gladness 
Of  some  elemental  madness  ? — 
Like  a  demigod  I  pine 
'Twixt  the  mortal  and  divine. — 
When  I  see  her,  lo,  she  stands 
In  the  luminous  electre 
Of  a  star  :  a  smiling  spectre 

With  white  scintillating  hands 
Luring  to  unhallowed  lands. 

And  I  see,  in  fearful  file, 
A  mirage  of  tower  and  terrace, 
Lawn,  and  mountain  range,  that  buries 

Flame  in  frost,  loom  ;  mile  on  mile 

Gleams  the  crescent  of  her  isle  : 


130    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Where  the  lurid  waters  lull 
Shores  that  roll  the  rainbow  fire  ; 
Sweet  with  living  lute  and  lyre, 

'Neath  the  rose-red  guiding  gull, 
Glides  her  star-like  galley's  hull. 

Wind-like  shapes  the  slaves  who  row 
Us  where  rise  her  walls  of  amber, 
Towers  of  vivid  ruby  clamber 
Over  terraces  below 
Summits  of  refulgent  snow  : 
Lambent  lazuli  and  shell 
Portals  ;  courts  with  sunset  marbled, 
Where  the  lightning  fountains  warbled 
Out  of  basined  pearl  and  fell 
Into  hollowed  curbuncle. 

Rosy  silver  is  the  skin 
Of  her  reaching  arm  commanding, 
With  its  shapely  hand,  me,  standing 

At  her  gates,  to  enter  in, 

Burning  as  a  Seraphin. — 


THE   SALAMANDER.  131 

Limpid  blackness  are  her  eyes, 
Where  the  frozen  fire  smolders  ; 
And  upon  her  shining  shoulders, 

Like  a  tangible  glitter,  lies 

Hair  voluptuous  topaz  dyes. 

Mouth  of  sibilant  soft  flame  ; 
Lilith  lips,  whose  language  brightens 
With  illusive  love,  that  lightens 
Into  music  and  the  name 
Of  desire  no  man  shall  tame  : 

Passion  and  the  thoughts  that  wed 
Love  and  languor  ;  and  caresses 
Of  sweet  touch  whose  kiss  expresses 

Love,  that  dreams  have  lured  and  led  ; 
Love,  upon  which  dreams  are  fed. 

She  has  touched  me  with  her  lips  ; 
Kissed  me  at  her  palace  portal  ; 
And  the  fire,  which  is  immortal, 

All  that  's  mortal  in  me  sips — 

Ah,  the  spirit-part's  eclipse  ! 


132    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

As  when  moon  and  planet  swoon 
Unto  each  ;  the  world  is  kindled 
Strangely  ;  while  the  disc  is  dwindled 
Of  the  earth-o'ershadowed  moon, 
Darkening  from  lune  to  lune. 

And  she  laughs  ;  and  leads  me  where 
Cloudy,  wild,  chameleon  color 
Marbles  halls  with  hues,  the  duller 
For  her  astral  presence  there, 
Beaming  white  with  beaming  hair  : 

Where  in  roses  purple  pale, — 
Dropping  like  a  ruby  bubble 
Through  the  moon  dust, — "  Double,  double," 
Throbs  the  crimson  nightingale  ; 
And  its  song — a  fiery  trail. 

Gardens  where  the  scarlet  snake 
Coils  beneath  the  flaming  flowers  ; 
Where  the  musk  mimosa  bowers 

Vague  vermilion  shadows  make 

In  the  coruscating  lake  : 


THE  SALAMANDER.  133 

Where  the  brilliant  moths  go  by 
Like  great  diamonds  ;  opal-burning 
Butterflies  ;  and  rainbow-turning 
Peacock-spangled  newts,  that  vie 
With  the  rocks  whereon  they  lie. 

Constellated  moss  which  fills 
Banks  with  lustre  ;  where  the  leaden 
Lichen  and  the  fungus  redden, 
And  the  sparkling  orchid  spills 
Gleaming  globules  on  the  hills  : 

Where,  in  iridescent  light, 
Glow  the  golden-checkered  zinnias  ; 
Blazing  bugles,  the  gloxinias 

Burn  a  radiant  red  and  white, 
Making  morning  of  each  height. 

I  have  gazed  in  eyes  not  mine, 
Where  the  liquid  moonlight  glittered 
Of  the  rivers  that  were  littered 

With  the  grail,  like  prisms  in  wine, 

Angles  of  seductive  shine  : 


134    INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Where,  in  sunset-colored  moss, 
Glow-worms,  smoldering  emeralds,  twinkled  ; 
And  the  blood-red  shade  was  sprinkled 
With  convulsive  sapphire  gloss 
Where  the  fire-flies  rained  across. 

Where  the  reeds  made  rays  of  rose, 
And  white  mirrored  moons,  the  lotus — 
Like  a  spirit  giving  notice 

Of  the  unseen  light  which  glows 
Where  the  under  water  flows — 

Dreams  have  met  us  on  the  way  ; 
Where,  like  an  auroral  splendor, 
Rolled  the  forest,  soft  and  tender 
As  the  light  of  dying  day, 
Moon-crowned  dreams,  who  bade  us  stay. 

Through  the  violetish  light, 

Winged  with  nautilus  and  lily 

Fire,  adown  the  forest's  stilly 
Vistas,  starry  whirls  of  white, 
Floated  birds  with  eyes  of  night. 


THE   SALAMANDER.  135 

I  must  follow  where  she  leads — 
Blinding  portals  of  her  castle 
To  my  entering  feet  are  facile     .     .     . 
Love  no  terrible  trumpet  needs 
At  such  gates  to  bugle  deeds. 

Lo,  my  reason  never  veils 
Thoughts  from  her.     To  her  caresses 
All  my  heart  knows  it  confesses 
With  a  faith  that  never  fails, 
Though  it  hears  the  truth  which  wails 

In  its  soul's  admonishment, 
Of  the  curse  which  sits  in  session 
In  each  amorous  confession 
Of  her  beauty's  indolent 
Love,  which  nothing  angel  sent. 

I  have  drained  the  feverish  cup 

Of  all  darkness  !     Made  a  leman 

Of  an  elemental  demon, 

While  my  soul  stood  staring  up 
Drinking  poison  at  each  sup  ! — 


136    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

While  she  smiles  on  me,  't  is  well. 
I  shall  follow,  though  she  take  me 
Out  of  conscience  ;  ne'er  to  wake  me 
From  the  dream  of  asphodel 
To  the  curse — yea  !  it  is  well ! 

And  her  wine's  mesmeric  gold 
Of  clairvoyance, — that  romances 
In  informing  Protean  fancies 
With  a  beauty  never  old, 
And  emotion  never  cold, — 

She  will  bring  me  if  I  wake 
From  the  trances  which  environ 
Me,  and  'neath  the  subtle  siren 

See  the  demon's  dreaming  snake 
With  destroying  eyes  that  ache  : — 

While  the  slow  laconic  look 

Of  her  eyes  bespeak  no  censure  ; 
Languid  eyes,  which  still  adventure 
Ways  her  serpent  fancy  took, 
Wiser  than  the  wisest  book  : 


THE  SALAMANDER. 

And  my  soul  shall  reverence 
Her, — whose  gaze  is  God's  negation, — 
Seeing,  like  an  emanation, 

All  she  dreams — an  influence 
Of  mirage  that  chains  each  sense. 

And  her  eyes  shall  seem  to  say  : 
"  One  more  dream  before  the  morning  ! 
Since  thy  soul  hath  given  warning, 
One  more  dream  ere  break  of  day  ! 
One  more  dream  and  then  away  !  " 

And  my  soul  shall  never  see, 
Till  her  basilisk  beauty  flashes, 
And  the  curse  from  out  the  ashes 
Of  her  passion  suddenly 
Coils  around  the  heart  of  me. 


138    INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


THE  ROSICRUCIAN. 


THE  tripod  flared  with  a  purple  spark, 
And  the  mist  hung  emerald  in  the  dark 
Now  he  stooped  to  the  lilac  flame 
Over  the  glare  of  the  amber  embers, 
Thrice  to  utter  no  earthly  name  ; 

Thrice,  like  a  mind  that  half  remembers  ; 
Bathing  his  face  in  the  magic  mist 
Where  the  brilliance  burned  like  an  amethyst. 

II. 

"  Sylph,  whose  soul  was  born  of  mine, 
Born  of  the  love  that  made  me  thine, 
Once  more  flash  on  the  flesh  !     Again 

Be  the  loved  caresses  taken  ! 
Lip  to  lip  let  our  mouths  remain  ! — 

Here  in  the  circle  of  sense,  awaken  ! 


THE  ROSICRUCIAN.  139 

Ere  spirit  meets  spirit,  the  flesh  laid  by, 
Let  me  know  thee,  and  let  me  die  !  " 

in. 

Sunset  heavens  may  burn,  but  never 

Bring  such  splendor  !     There  bloomed  an  ever 

Opaline  orb,  where  the  sylphid  rose, 

A  shape  of  luminous  white  ;  diviner 
White  than  the  essence  of  light  that  sows 

The  moons  and  suns  through  space  ;  and  finer 
Than  radiance  born  of  a  shooting  star, 
Or  the  wild  Aurora  that  streams  afar. 

IV. 

"  Look  on  the  face  of  the  soul  to  whom 
Thou  givest  thy  soul  like  added  perfume  !_ 
Thou,  who  heard'st  me  who  long  had  prayed, 

Waiting  alone  at  evening's  portal ! — 
Thus  on  thy  lips  let  my  lips  be  laid, 

Love,  who  hast  made  me  twice  immortal  ! 
Give  me  thine  arms  now  !     Come  and  rest 
Happiness  out  on  my  beaming  breast ! " 


140    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 
V. 

Was  it  her  soul  ?  or  the  sapphire  fire 
That  sang  like  the  note  of  a  Seraph's  lyre  ? 
Out  of  her  mouth  there  came  no  word — 

She  spake  with  her  soul,  as  a  flower  speaketh 
Fragrant  messages  none  hath  heard, 

Which  the  sense  divines  when  the  spirit  seek- 

eth.    .    .    . 

And  he  seemed  alone  in  a  place  so  dim 
That  the  angel's  face,  who  was  gazing  at  him, 
For  its  burning  eyes,  he  could  not  see — 
And  he  knew  he  was  dead  ;  and  that  he  and  she 
Were  one — and  he  saw  that  this  was  he. 


ARABAH.  141 


ARABAH. 

AND   one  brought    pearls   and   one   brought 
passion-flowers 

To  blind  Arabah  as  he  lay  in  dreams, 
And  one  brought  visions  of  the  after  hours  : 
So  he  beheld  the  rainbow-rolling  streams 
Of  Eden  on  harmonious  sands  of  gold, 

And  battlements  builded  of  prismatic  beams. 
Nor  sightless  was  he  now,  nor  weak,  nor  old, 

For,  lo  !  the  dark-eyed  girls  of  Paradise 
Leaned  kissing  him  with  kisses  manifold. — 

Feeble  Arabah  with  unseeing  eyes 
No  longer  sightless,  since  each  kiss  they  gave 
Was  youth  immortal,  love  that  never  dies. — 

"Who    's   he   who   lies   upon   the   mosque's   cold 

pave?"— 

"  A   blind   man,   whom   an   angel's   hand    shall 
lead."— 


142    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

"  A  beggar,  richer  than  the  rich  who  have." 
"  Behold  the  lesson,  such  as  Sufis  feed 

The  soul  upon  ! — O  faith,  blind-praying  !  see 
Out  of  thyself  how  God  repays  indeed 

Ten-thousand  fold  one  generosity  !  " 

Who  knew  it  not  ?  how,  at  the  hour  of  prayer, 
A  slave  beneath  each  shoulder,  it  was  he, 

Old,  blind  Arabah,  whom  a  suppliant  there, 
Footsore  and  hungry,  met  and  asked  for  bread. 

"Alas  !  my  son,  God's  poor  are  everywhere," — 
Hoar  as  a  Koreish  priest,  Arabah  said  ; — 

!<  The  rich  one  I  though  penniless  indeed  ! 
Take   thou   these   slaves   and    sell,  and  buy   thee 
bread." — 

And  thrust  them  from  him   saying,  "  Thou  hast 

need. 
Refuse,  and  I  renounce  them  !  " — And  the  wall 

Struck    with    his    staff,    saying,    "Can  this  not 

lead  ?  "— 

While  from  some  mosque  rang  the  muezzin's  call, 
"  God  is  most  mighty  !     Allah  seeth  all  !  " 


NORTH  BEACH,   FLORIDA.  143 


NORTH  BEACH,  FLORIDA. 

SURGE  upon  surge,  the  miles  of  surf  uncurl 
Volutes  of   murmur  ;    and  the   far   shore 

foams  ; 
The  thundering  billows,  boiling  into  pearl, 

The  wild  wind  clouds  and  combs. 

Wave  upon  wave, — as  when  the  Nereids  pour 

Green  tresses  from  white  fillets,  when  the  arms 
Of  Tritons  reach  them  racing  to  the  shore, — 
Bursts  on  the  beach  that  storms. 

Oh  thou  primeval  solitude  !  that  rolled 

Out  of  creation  when  the  world  was  young  ! 
And  shall  roll  on  when  man  is  not,  and  old 
The  ages  yet  unsung  ! 

Time  shall  not  flaw  thy  music  ! — thou  hast  heard 
God's  spirit  on  thy  waters,  and  no  night 


144    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Annuls  the  memory  of  that  one  Word 
Which  blossomed  into  light. 

With  such  impression  as  upon  thy  face 

The    soaring    seagulls    make,    man   comes  and 

came  ; 

And  countless  myriads,  race  on  warring  race, 
Have  found  thee  thus  the  same. 

Thy  part  is  to  destroy  and  still  remain 

Immutable  'midst  mutability : 
The  symbol  of  all  change,  that  clothes  again 
Mystery  in  mystery  ! 


THE    WATCHER. 


145 


THE  WATCHER. 

AH,  young  the  dream  which  held  her  when 
The  world  was  moon-white  with  the  May  ; 
She  watched  the  singing  fishermen 
Sail  out  to  sea  at  break  of  day  : 
Soft,  as  the  morning  heaven  then, 
The  eyes  that  watched  him  sail  away. 

Ah,  calm  her  grief  when  summer  filled 

The  world  with  warm  maturity  : 
Far  off  she  watched  the  nets  that  spilled 

Their  twinkling  foison  by  the  sea  : 
And  sat  upon  the  cliffs  and  stilled 

With  song  the  baby  on  her  knee. 

Who  to  her  love  would  make  them  lies — 
Those  vows  his  sea-slain  manhood  swore  ? 

Beneath  the  raining  autumn  skies 
The  fishing  vessels  put  to  shore  : 

She  watches  with  remembering  eyes 

For  the  brown  face  that  comes  no  more. 


146    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


ANALOGIES. 

OF  Rosamond  the  beautiful,  of  her 
The   joy   and   pride   of    Cunimund, — last 

king 
Of  the  fierce  Gepidse, — a  warrior 

Such  as  the  old-world  minstrels  loved  to  sing, 
To  Alboin,  Prince  of  Lombardy, — at  war 

With  Cunimund  her  father, — fame  did  bring 
Report  of  such  proud  loveliness  and  grace 
That  he  had  loved  her  ere  he  saw  her  face. 

War  was  between  them  and  the  hate  of  thrones  : 
For  he  had  slain  a  son  of  Turismund 

And  brother  of  King  Cunimund.     His  bones 
Were  as  a  wall  between  desire — unsunned 

Of  such  encouragement  as  young  Love  owns ; 
Young  Love,  before  the  ruined  lips  that  stunned 

Appeal  with  dead  defiance,  and  the  grim 

Confrontment  mocking  as  the  hopes  of  him. 


ANALOGIES.  147 

Such  oft  is  Life  !  that,  standing  with  Despair 

Looks  on  some  crime, — as  looked  the  conqueror 

Of  Rosamond, — ere  goaded  on  to  dare 
Fate  by  the  stern  arbitrament  of  war  : 

Death  smiles  within  the  danger  of  her  hair  ; 
Defeat,  more  deadly  than  the  wild  Avar, 

Gleams  armored  in  her  eyes  ;  and  in  her  mouth 

An  exarch  marshals  legions  from  the  south. 

Yet,  should  he  so  prevail  against  her  might — 
Her  woman  Pride,  her  hosts  of  beautiful 

Angers   and   Scorns — that    she    be    forced,    some 

night, 
To  pledge  him  faith  in  Hate's  full  cup,  a  skull — 

What  though  he  sees  Revenge  writ  fiery  white 
Upon  her  brow  !     Revenge,  that  hides  a  dull 

Poison  for  sleep,  or  dagger  all  prepared  ! — 

Life   writes   not   Failure   where    Fate    writes 
He  dared. 


148    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


IMITATED    FROM  OSSIAN. 


OINA-MORUL'S  LAMENT. 

AND  singing  she  said  with  emotion  : 
"  Who  looks  from  the  surf-sounding  rocks 
On  the  white-closing  mists  of  the  ocean, 

Like  the  wing  of  the  raven  his  locks  ? 
Dark  care  on  his  brow  is  a  furrow ; 

And  dark  is  the  grief  of  his  eye  ; 
But  darker  than  sorrow  my  sorrow — 

Tonthermod,  my  love,  must  thou  die  ! — 
From  Malorchul's  high  hall  I  will  wander 

To  islands  unknown  of  a  barque  ! 
With  the  race  of  the  sea-kings  around  her, 

The  soul  of  Oina  is  dark.     .     .     . 
Is  the  sound  of  the  storm  on  the  ocean, 

Where  the  darkness  is  riven  with  flame  ? 
Or  the  voice  of  Cruth-Loda's  emotion 


IMITATED  FROM  O  SSI  AN.  149 

As  he  boasts  in  the  might  of  his  name  ? — 
The  dark-bosomed  ships,  bending  over, 

Kiss  the  white-bosomed  breasts  of  the  sea — 
But  thou  !  thou  art  lost,  O  my  lover, 

Tonthermod,  forever  to  me  !  " 


n. 

TOSCAR    AND    COLMADONA. 

LIKE  the  rippling  stream  of  Crona 
Where  the  forests  darken  down, 
Were  the  locks  of  Colmadona 

O'er  her  white  neck  falling  brown. 

And  the  night  lay  soft  and  sable 

Over  Carul's  druid  walls  ; 
Round  the  mighty  oaken  table 

Rang  the  harps  through  ancient  halls. 

With  the  harp  now  Carul's  daughter 
Blends  the  music  of  her  voice  ; 


I5O    INTIMATIONS  OF  7"HE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Like  the  sound  of  falling  water 
In  the  moonlight  is  her  voice. 

Toscar,  gazing,  leans  and  listens 
To  the  singing  of  the  maid — 

Like  a  beam  that  falls  and  glistens 
Where  the  stormy  deep  is  laid  ; 

Like  a  gleam  that  leaps  and  lightens 
From  the  midnight  clouds  that  roll, 

And  the  troubled  water  brightens, — 
Came  she  to  his  troubled  soul.  .  .  . 

In  the  morn  they  rose  and  hunted 

Through  the  hills  with  spear  and  bow  ; 

Bleeding  by  the  stream  it  wonted 
Fell  the  arrow-stricken  roe. 

Through  wild  Crona's  vale  returning, 
From  the  wood  a  youth  drew  near  ; 

On  his  arm  a  shield  was  burning, 
In  his  hand  a  pointless  spear. 


IMITATED  FROM   OSSIAN.  151 

"  Whence,"  said  Toscar  then  of  Lutha, 
"  Comes  this  flying  beam  of  war  ? — 

Is  there  peace  at  wide  Colamon 
Round  the  lovely  maid  of  Car  ?  " 

Said  the  youth,  "  At  wide  Colamon 

Colmadona  once  did  dwell, 
Fair  as  any  foaming  fountain 

Springing  in  a  lonely  dell. 

"  There  she  dwelt ! — Ah,  canst   thou   hear 
it?— 

With  the  King  of  Lochlin's  son, 
Luth,  who  won  with  love  her  spirit, 

To  the  mountains  she  is  gone." 

"  Stranger,"  then  said  Toscar  sadly, 

"  Hast  thou  marked  the  chieftain's  path  ? 

He  must  die  ! — I  loved  her  madly  !— 
He  must  fall  before  my  wrath  ! 

"  Thou   art   armed     .     .     .     Give   me    thy 

bossy 
Shield  !  "  and  on  it  hands  he  laid — 


152    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Lo  !  behind  it,  white  and  glossy, 
Rose  the  bosom  of  a  maid. 

The  high-bosomed  Colmadona, 
Carul's  blue-eyed  daughter  there, 

Standing  by  the  reedy  Crona, 
In  her  armor  very  fair. 

Warrior-like  her  love  for  Toscar 
Led  her  from  her  father's  hall — 

Love  will  laugh  at  kings  and  armies 

In  the  halls  of  great  Fingal. 
1886. 


THE  BATTLE.  153 


THE  BATTLE. 

THE  night  had  passed.     The  day  had  come, 
Bright-born,  into  a  cloudless  sky  : 
We  heard  the  rolling  of  the  drum, 
And  saw  the  war-flags  fly. 

And  noon  had  crowded  upon  morn 
Ere  Conflict  shook  her  red  locks  far, 

And  blew  her  brazen  battle-horn 
Upon  the  hills  of  War. 

Noon  darkened  into  dusk — one  blot 

Of  nightmare  lit  with  hell-born  suns  ; — 

We  heard  the  scream  of  shell  and  shot 
And  booming  of  the  guns. 

On  batteries  of  belching  grape 

We  saw  the  thundering  cavalry 
Spur  headlong — iron  shape  on  shape 

Led  starlike  on  to  die. 


154    INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

And  dusk  had  moaned  itself  to  night, 
Rain-haunted.     And  we  slept  again — 

To  dream  of  many  a  bivouac  light, 
And  dark  fields  vast  with  slain. 


THE  MESSAGE.  155 


THE  MESSAGE. 

A   DAY  of  drought  foreboding  rain  and  wind, 
As  if  stern  heaven,  feeling  earth  had  sinned, 
Looked  on  with  hatred.     When  the  evening 

came, 

Down  in  the  west, — no  sunset  fire  had  thinned, — 
Black  as  the  smoke  of  battle,  flame  on  flame, 


The  lightning  signalled  and  the  heaven  spoke 

In  thunder,  and  storm's  pent-up  torrents  broke  : — 

She  saw  the    wild   night    when    the    dark  pane 

flashed  ; 
Heard,  where  she  stood,  the  disemboweled  oak 

Roar  into  fragments  when  the  welkin  crashed. 


Long  had  she  waited  for  a  word.     And,  lo, 
Anticipation  still  would  not  say  no  : 

He  has  not  written  ;  he  will  come  to  her  ; 
At  dawn  ! — to-night !  Her  heart  hath  told  her  so  ; 

And  so  expectancy  and  love  aver. 


I$6    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Hope  bids  her  hear  his  fingers  on  the  pane — 
The  glass  is  blurred,  she  can  not  see  for  rain  : 

Bids  hear  his  horse — the  wind  is  never  still : 
Bids  see  his  cloak,  ah  !  surely  that  is  plain — 

A  torn  vine  tossing  at  the  window-sill. 

Her  soul  goes  forth  to  meet  him  :  Pale  and  wet, 
She  sees  his  face  ;  the  war-soiled  epaulet  ; 

The  sabre-scar  there  on  the  soldier's  cheek  ; 
And  now  he  smiles,  and  now  their  lips  have  met ; 

And  now    .   .    .    Dear  heart  !    he  fell  at  Cedar 
Creek. 


MOSB  Y  AT  HAMIL  TON.  I  57 


MOSBY  AT  HAMILTON. 

DOWN  Loudon  lanes,  with  swinging  reins 
And  clash  of  spur  and  sabre, 
And  bugling  of  the  battle  horn, 
Six  score  and  eight  we  rode  that  morn, 
Six  score  and  eight  of  Southern  born, 
All  tried  in  love  and  labor. 

Full  in  the  sun,  at  Hamilton, 

We  met  the  South's  invaders  ; 
Who,  over  fifteen  hundred  strong, 
'Mid  blazing  homes  had  marched  along 
All  night,  with  Northern  shout  and  song, 

To  crush  the  rebel  raiders. 

Down  Loudon  lanes,  with  streaming  manes, 

We  spurred  in  wild  March  weather  ; 
And  all  along  our  war-scarred  way 
The  graves  of  Southern  heroes  lay — 


158    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Our  guide-posts  to  revenge  that  day, 
As  we  rode  grim  together. 

Old  tales  still  tell  some  miracle 

Of  saints  in  holy  writing — 
But  who  shall  say  why  hundreds  fled 
Before  the  few  that  Mosby  led, 
Unless  the  noblest  of  our  dead 

Charged  with  us  then  when  fighting  ! 

While  Yankee  cheers  still  stunned  our  ears, 

Of  troops  at  Harper's  Ferry  ; 
While  Sheridan  led  on  his  Huns, 
And  Richmond  rocked  to  roaring  guns, 
We  felt  the  South  still  had  some  sons 

She  would  not  scorn  to  bury. 


IN  HOSPITAL.  159 


IN  HOSPITAL. 

WOUNDED  to  death  he  lay  and  dreamed 
The  drums  of  battle  beat  afar, 
And  round  the  roaring  trenches  screamed 
The  hell  of  war. 

Then  woke  ;  and,  weeping,  heard  no  word 

To  say  a  sweetheart  bent  above  ; 
Yet,  in  the  white-washed  ward  was  heard 
A  song  of  love. 

Lay  this  upon  him  in  his  grave, 

The  portrait  that  he  kissed,  then  sighed 
"  My  mother  !  "  and  "  Be  brave  !  be  brave  !  " 
Then  smiled  and  died. 


l6o    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


IN  SILHOUETTE. 


THE  storm-red  sun,  through  wrecks  of  wind  and 
rain, 

And  dead  leaves  driven  from  the  frantic  boughs, 
Where,  on  the  hill-top,  stood  a  gaunt,  gray  house, 
Flashed  wildest  ruby  on  each  rainy  pane. 

Then  woods  grew  sadder  than  remembered  grief  ; 

And  crimson  through  the  woodland's  ruin 
streamed 

The  sunset's  glare — a  furious  eye,  which  seemed 
Watching  the  moon  rise  like  a  yellow  leaf  : 

An  autumn  leaf,  blown  tattered  from  the  lair 
Of  dusk  behind  the  storm-swept  hill,  whereon 
A  lonely  woman  waited  ;  darkly  drawn 

With  sombre  dress  and  wind-dishevelled  hair. 


IN  SILHOUETTE.  l6l 

II. 

She — who  stands  looking  with  no  quiet  tears 
For  the  young  face  of  one  she  knows  is  lost, 
While,  in  her  heart,  the  melancholy  frost 

Gathers  of  all  the  unforgotten  years  ; — 

If  she  should  hear  to-night  a  hurrying  horse 
Bring  home  a  more  immedicable  grief, — 
Wild  as  the  whirling  of  the  withered  leaf, — 

Than  the  soiled  features  of  a  blood-stained  corse  ? 

A  shattered  shape,  who  names  her  his  own  wife  ; 
A  soldier — no  !  a  wreck,  that  bends  at  last 
A  face,  that  late  made  lovely  all  her  past, 

And  groans,  "  Live  with  me  !    I  am  death  in  life  !  " 


1 62    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 
ASSUMPTION, 
i. 

A  MILE  of  moonlight  and  the  whispering  wood; 
A  mile  of  shadow,  and  the  odorous  lane  ; 
One  large  white  star  above  the  quietude 

Like  one  sweet  wish  ;  and,  laughter  after  pain, 
Wild  roses  wistful  in  a  web  of  rain. 

ii. 

No  star,  no  rose,  when  love  assumes  the  lead  ! 
No  woodsman  compass  of  the  skies  and  rocks, 

Tattooed  with  stars  and  lichens,  shall  he  need 
To  guide  him  where,  among  the  hollyhocks, 
A  blur  of  moonlight,  gleam  his  sweetheart's  locks 

in. 

We  name  it  beauty — that  permitted  part, 
The  Love-elected  apotheosis 

Of  Nature,  which  the  god  within  the  heart 
Just  touching  makes  immortal,  but  by  this, — 
A  star,  a  rose, — the  memory  of  a  kiss. 


CARA   MIA.  163 


CARA  MIA. 

TO    M. 


SOFT  lips  to  kiss  to  sleep, 
Soft  eyes  to  make  you  dream, 
Soft  hands  to  waken  ; 
Two  sweetest  flow'rs  to  keep, 
Soft  lips  that  kiss  to  sleep  ; 
Two  brightest  stars  to  beam, 
Soft  eyes  that  make  you  dream  ; 
Wings  that  are  shaken, 
Soft  hands  that  waken. 

n. 

Her  lips,  to  give  perfume  ; 
Her  eyes,  to  kindle  light ; 

Her  hands  to  hallow  ; 
To  every  flow'r  in  bloom 


164    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Her  lips  shall  give  perfume  ; 
In  every  star  at  night 
Her  eyes  shall  kindle  light ; 
Wings  that  are  callow 
Her  hands  shall  hallow. 


in. 

Who  would  not  love  to  rest  ? 
Who  would  not  love  to  lie  ? 

Who  would  not  love  them  ? 
Such  flowers  on  their  breast, 
Who  would  not  love  to  rest  ? 
Such  stars  within  their  sky, 
Who  would  not  love  to  lie  ? 

Such  wings  above  them, 
Who  would  not  love  them  ? 


ESOTERIC.  165 


ESOTERIC, 
i. 

WITHIN  the  old,  old  forest 
The  wind  hath  whispered  me 
Thou  livest — thou,  who  warest 
With  birds  in  melody, 
And  all  the  wood-way  starest 
With  flowers  fragrantly, 
Thou  presence  none  may  see  ! 

n. 

If  I  should  seek  thee  sitting 
Beneath  the  woodland  tree, 

The  elder  blossoms  knitting 
In  wreaths  of  witchery, 

Between  the  glimpse  and  flitting, 
What  wouldst  thou  show  to  me, 
Thou  presence  none  may  see  ? 


1 66    INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 
III. 

O  thou,  who,  mayhap,  hidest 
A  flow'r  upon  the  tree  ; 

Or  in  a  color  glidest 
Beyond  me  secretly  ; 

Or  in  a  scent  abidest, 

A  fragrance, — show  to  me 
The  thing  my  heart  would  see  ! 

IV. 

If  I  should  seek  thee  dreaming 

Upon  the  wild-rose  lea, 
Thy  feet  and  white  hands  gleaming 

More  pollened  than  the  bee, 
Between  the  real  and  seeming, 

What  wouldst  thou  say  to  me, 

Thou  presence  none  may  see  ? 

v. 

O  thou,  who,  mayhap,  talkest 
With  birds  that  sing  of  thee  ; 


ESOTERIC.  167 

Or  with  the  water  walkest, 

A  hidden  harmony  ; 
Or  in  the  sweet  wind  mockest, 

A  music, — say  to  me 

The  thoughts  my  soul  would  see  ! 


1 68    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


MNEMONICS. 

IT  shall  not  be  forgotten 
Of  any  one  who  sees, — 
The  sorrel-flow'r  amid  the  moss, 
The  wind-flower  'mid  the  trees. 

Though  I  can  but  remember 

All  flowers  by  her  face, 

That  flow'r,  which  is  my  life's  perfume, 

Kin  to  the  wildflow'r  race. 

It  shall  not  be  forgotten 
Of  any  one  who  looks, — 
The  falling-star  above  the  hills, 
Or  imaged  in  the  brooks. 

Though  I  can  but  remember 
The  star-fire  by  her  eyes, 
Those  stars,  which  are  my  destiny, 
Bright  sisters  to  the  skies'. 


MNEMONICS.  169 

And,  oh,  the  song  that  follows 
The  wing-step  of  the  bird  ! — 
It  shall  not  be  forgotten 
When  once  such  song  is  heard. 

Though  I  can  but  remember 

All  music  by  her  words, 

That  song,  which  is  my  heart's  response, 

Kin  to  the  building  bird's. 

How  shall  they  be  forgotten, 

The  fair  and  fugitive, 

When  in  all  birds  and  stars  and  flowers 

Love's  intimations  live  ! 


I/O    INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

THE  NAIAD. 

SHE  sits  among  the  iris  stalks 
Of  bubbling  brooks  ;  and  leans  for  hours 
Among  the  river's  lily  flowers, 
Or  on  their  whiteness  walks  : 

Above  dark  forest  pools,  lone  rocks 
Wall  in,  she  leans  with  dripping  locks, 
And  listening  to  the  echo,  talks 
With  her  fair  face — lothera. 

There  is  no  forest  of  the  hills, 
No  valley  of  the  solitude, 
Nor  fern,  nor  moss,  which  may  elude 

Her  searching  step  that  stills  : 

She  dreams  among  the  wild-rose  brakes 
Of  fountains  that  the  ripple  shakes, 

And,  dreaming  of  herself,  she  fills 
The  silence  with  "  lothera." 

And  every  wind,  which  haunts  the  ways 
Of  leaf  and  bough,  once  having  kissed 
Her  virgin  nudity,  goes  whist 


THE   NAIAD.  I  *J\ 

With  wonder  and  with  praise  : 

There  blows  no  breeze  which  hath  not  learned 
Her  name's  sweet  melody,  and  yearned 

To  kiss  her  mouth  that  laughs  and  says 
"  lothera,  lothera." 

No  wild  thing  of  the  wood,  no  bird, 

Or  brown  or  blue,  or  gold  or  gray, 

Beneath  the  sun's  or  moonlight's  ray, 
That  hath  not  loved  and  heard  : 

They  are  her  pupil's  ;  she  may  say 

No  new  thing,  but,  within  a  day, 
They  have  its  music,  word  for  word, 

Harmonious  as  lothera. 

No  man  who  lives  and  is  not  wise 

With  love  for  common  flowers  and  trees, 
Bee,  bird  and  beast,  and  brook  and  breeze, 

And  rocks  and  hills  and  skies, — 

Search  where  he  will, — shall  ever  see 
One  flutter  of  her  drapery, 

One  glimpse  of  limbs,  or  hair,  or  eyes 
Of  beautiful  lothera. 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


THE  RED-BIRD. 

RED  clouds  and  reddest  flowers, 
And  now  two  redder  wings 
Swim  through  the  rosy  hours  ; 
Red  wings  among  the  flowers  ; 
And  now  the  red-bird  sings. 

God  gives  the  red  clouds  ripples 

Of  flame  that  seem  to  split 
In  rubies  and  in  dripples 
Of  rose  where  rills  and  ripples 
The  singing  flame  that  lit. 

Red  clouds  of  sundered  splendor  ; 

God  whispered  one  small  word, 
Rich,  sweet,  and  wild  and  tender — 
And,  in  the  vibrant  splendor, 

The  word  became  a  bird. 


THE  RED- BIRD. 

He  flies  beneath  the  garnet 

Of  clouds  that  flame  and  float, — 
When  summer  hears  the  hornet 
Hum  round  the  plum  turned  garnet, 
Heaven's  music  in  his  throat. 


174    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


THE  STORM. 

A    DAEMON  glares  on  the  hills, 
The  frown  of  his  black  brow  showing, 
The  hiss  of  his  fierce  breath  blowing 
Like  hail  through  his  beard  that  it  fills. 
The  forests  are  taken  ; 

The  violent  oaks 
Are  twisted  and  shaken 
As  by  chariot  spokes, 
Where  mountains  awaken 
The  hoofs  of  his  yokes 
Reined  sheer  with  the  strength  of  his  arm- 
Ride  forth,  O  spirit  of  storm  ! — 
What  hope  for  the  sparrow, 

Or  nest  of  the  bird  ! 
Where  fords  were  once  narrow, 

What  hope  for  the  herd  ! 
When  arrow  on  arrow 
He  empties  the  third 


THE  STORM.  I 

Of  his  quiver  against  their  alarm — 

Descend,  O  spirit  of  storm  ! — 
You  may  measure  the  might  that  he  brings 
By  the  welkin  which  echoes  his  felloes  ; 
By  the  fork  of  the  lightning,  that  yellows 
The  darkness,  the  sword  that  he  swings. 
The  cattle  are  scattered 

And  low  from  the  shore  ; 
The  roses  are  shattered 

That  grew  at  the  door  ; 
The  swallows  look  tattered, 

And  twitter  and  soar, 
Made  glad  with  the  force  of  his  form — 
Rejoice,  O  spirit  of  storm  ! — 
On  levels  that  sunder 

The  might  of  the  main, 
He  ploughs  with  the  thunder 

And  sows  with  the  rain  ; 
No  sunbeam  shall  blunder 

Through  black  till  the  plain 
Is  planted  with  storm  as  a  farm — 
Sweep  on,  O  spirit  of  storm  ! — 


INTIMATIONS   OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

His  path  is  the  abysm,  which  heaps 

The  wild  wind  behind  him,  and  hovers 
A  whirlwind  before,  that  discovers 
The  hurricane  lair  where  he  sleeps. 
On  tempests  that  wrestle 

God's  stars  shall  descend  ! 
To  guard  the  good  vessel 

From  rocks  that  would  rend  ;- 
Like  mercies  that  nestle, 
God's  stars,  to  defend 
The  father  and  his  from  all  harm — 
From  thee,  O  spirit  of  storm  ! 


MARIE.  177 


M 


MARIE. 


ARIE  draws  near  : 

I  seem  to  hear 
The  shy  approach  of  dreamy  innocence  : 
As  if — brown  leaves  her  crown — 
A  dryad  should  step  down 
From  some  dim  oak-tree  where  the  woods  are  dense. 

ii. 

Marie  's  with  me  : 

I  seem  to  see 

The  brambles    blossom    where    just    touched    her 
dress  : 

For,  as  the  whole  spring  glows 

In  one  wild,  woodland  rose, 
In  her  for  me  lives  all  life's  loveliness. 


1 78    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


LINES  TO  M. 


WHAT  better  praise  for  all  her  ways, 
Than  that  all  hours  her  ways  illume? 
Such  brightness  as  the  maiden  year 
Knows,  when  God's  kindness  seems  as  near 
As  flowers  whose  wisdom  's  but  to  bloom. 

Hers  the  deep  hair  :  a  face  more  fair 

Than  gardens  June  sets  blossoming  ; 
The  sunshine  of  her  gladness  gleams 
In  bloom-bright  lips  and  cheeks,  and  dreams 
Upon  her  throat's  soft  coloring. 

Her  voice  is  sweet  as  birds  that  greet 
With  song  the  coming  of  the  light  ; 

The  serious  happy  gleam  that  lies 

In  the  dark  lustre  of  her  eyes 
Is  as  the  starlight  in  the  night. 


LINES   TO  M.  179 

Beyond  the  sea  such  girls  as  she 
It  was  whom  Titian  loved  to  paint 

With  calm  Madonna  eyes  and  hair, 

Divinely  pale  and  dim  and  fair, 
Soft  as  the  halo  of  a  saint. 


180    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


CIRCE. 

THE  pillared  portals  of  her  home  once  rose 
from  out  the  sea  ; 
Its  casements  burnt  with  green  sea-fire  of  ocean 

mystery  ; 
And  all  its  halls  of  love  were  full  of  mermaid  melody. 

Its  battlements  of  beauty  were  a  pharos  from  afar, 
To  lure  the  wand'ring  seamen  like  a  constellated 

star  ; — 
Life  may  question  ;  death  is  silent ;  will  it  answer 

where  they  are  ? 

It  is  enough  to  know  that  once  love  led  me  with  a 

lute- 
To  taste  the  honey  of  her  soul  and  of  her  flesh  the 

fruit ; 
Between  the  soul  and  flesh  she  changed  my  self  into 

a  brute. 


CIRCE.  l8l 

It  is  enough  to  know  that  love  once  sate  me  at  a 

feast — 
Her  word  was  bread  and  oil  to  me,  her  kiss  was 

wine  at  least ; 
Between  the  word  and  kiss  she  changed  my  self  into 

a  beast. 

The  marble  now  is  vanished  where  the  columned 

wonder  rose  ; 
The  billow  beats  complaining  there,  a  heart  of  many 

woes  ; 
The  sea  wind  sings  uncertain  things  of  what  the 

siren  knows. 

Ah  me  !  you  know  not  how  it  is  with  him  who  once 

hath  been 
A  portion  of  such  passion  and  the  slave  of  such  a 

queen  ! 
What  such  possession  of  her  love  to  his  whole  life 

may  mean  ! 

The  world  of  languid  attitudes  that  lured  him  to 
despair ; 


1 82    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Abandonments  of  beauty  that  his  heart  would  not 

beware — 
A  red  rose  suffering  death,  to  live  one  hour  in  her 

hair. 

Yea,  just  to  be  again  to  her  as  music  to  the  lute, 
As  fragrance  to  the  senses,  as  to  lips  the  blood-red 

fruit, 
Between  the  soul  and  flesh  again,  unto  her  beauty, 

brute  ! 

Her  alabaster  stairways  and  her  casements  filled 

with  light, 

Her  corridors  of  melody  and  colonnades  of  night 
Shall  haunt  his  soul  forever  with  the  magic  of  her 

might ! 


THE  PAP  HI  AN   VENUS.  183 


THE  PAPHIAN  VENUS. 

WITH  anxious  eyes  and  dry,  expectant  lips, 
Within  the  sculptured  stoa  by  the  sea, 
All  day  she  waited  while,  like  ghostly  ships, 
Long  clouds  rolled  over  Paphos  :  the  wild  bee 
Sucked  in  the  sultry  poppy,  half  asleep, 
Beside  the  shepherd  and  his  drowsy  sheep. 

White-robed  she  waited  day  by  day  ;  alone 

With  the  white  temple's  shrined  concupiscence, 

The  Paphian  goddess  on  her  obscene  throne, 
Binding  all  chastity  to  violence, 

All  innocence  to  lust  that  feels  no  shame — 

Venus  Mylitta  born  of  filth  and  flame. 

So  must  they  haunt  her  marble  portico, 
The  devotees  of  passion,  grown  as  pale 

As  moonlight  streaming  through  the  stormy  snow  ; 
Dark  eyes  desirous  of  the  stranger  sail, — 


1 84    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

The  gods  shall  bring  across  the  Cyprian  Sea, — 
And  him  elected  to  their  mastery. 

A  priestess  of  the  temple  came,  when  eve 
Blazed,  like  a  satrap's  triumph,  in  the  west ; 

And  watched  her  listening  to  the  ocean's  heave, 
Dusk's  golden  glory  on  her  face  and  breast, 

And  in  her  hair  the  rosy  wind's  caress, — 

Pitying  her  dedicated  tenderness. 

When  out  of  darkness  night  persuades  the  stars, 
A  dream  shall  bend  above  her  saying,  "  Soon 

A  barque  shall  come  with  purple  sails  and  spars, 
Sailing  from  Tarsus  'neath  a  low  white  moon  ; 

And  thou  shalt  see  one  in  a  robe  of  Tyre 

Facing  toward  thee  like  the  god  Desire. 

"  Rise  then  !  as,  clad  in  starlight,  riseth  night — 
Thy  nakedness  clad  on  with  loveliness  ! 

So  shalt  thou  see  him,  like  the  god  Delight, 

Breast  through  the  foam  and  climb  the  cliff  to 
press 

Hot  lips  to  thine  and  lead  thee  in  before 

Love's  awful  presence  where  ye  shall  adore." 


THE  PAPHIAN    VENUS.  185 

So  at  her  heart  the  vision  entered  in, 

With  lips  of  lust  the  lips  of  song  had  kissed, 

And  eyes  of  passion  laughing  with  sweet  sin, 
A  starry  splendor  robed  in  amethyst, 

Seen  like  that  star  set  in  the  glittering  gloam — 

Venus  Mylitta  born  of  fire  and  foam. 

So  shall  she  dream  until,  near  middle  night, — 
When  on  the  blackness  of  the  ocean's  rim 

The  moon,  like  some  war-galleon  all  alight 

With  blazing  battle,  from  the  sea  shall  swim, — 

A  shadow,  with  inviolate  eyes  that  pray, 

Severe  and  sad,  shall  stoop  to  her  and  say  : 

"  So  hast  thou  heard  the  promises  of  one, — 

Of  her  !  with  whom  the  God  of  gods  is  wroth, — 

For  whom  was  prophesied  at  Babylon 
The  second  death — Chaldsean  Mylidoth  ! 

Whose  feet  take  hold  on  darkness  and  despair, 

Hissing  destruction  in  her  heart  and  hair  ! 

"  Wouldst  thou  behold  the  vessel  she  would  bring  ? — 
A  wreck  !  ten  hundred  years  have  smeared  with 
slime  : 


1 86    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

A  hulk  !  where  all  abominations  cling, 

The  spawn  and  vermin  of  the  seas  of  time  : 
Wild  waves  have  rotted  it,  fierce  suns  have  scorched, 
Mad   winds   have   tossed   and    stormy   stars   have 
torched. 

"  Can  lust  give  birth  to  love  !     The  vile  and  foul 
Be  mother  to  beauty  ?    Lo  !  can  this  thing  be  ? — 

A  monster  like  a  man  shall  rise  and  howl 
Upon  the  wreck  across  the  crawling  sea, 

Then  plunge  ;  and  swim  unto  thee  ;  like  an  ape, 

A  beast  all  belly — Thou  canst  not  escape  !  " 

Gone  was  the  shadow  with  the  suffering  brow  ; 

And  in  the  temple's  porch  she  lay  and  wept, 
Alone  with  night,  the  ocean,  and  her  vow. 

Then  up  the  east  the  moon's  full  splendor  swept, 
And,  dark  between  it — wreck  ?  or  argosy  ? — 
A  sudden  vessel  far  away  at  sea. 


METAMORPHOSIS.  1 8? 


METAMORPHOSIS. 

BEFORE    Love's    lofty    goddess— Life    hath 
toiled 

To  form  from  burning  dew  and  dewy  fire — 
Who  kneel  and  worship  with  a  heart  that 's  soiled, 
Within  the  secret  temple  of  Desire  ; 
Their  curse  is  such  :  that,  even  while  they  pray, 
They  shall  not  see,  nor  shall  they  know  thereof, 
Their  deity  is  turned  a  thing  of  clay, — 
Lust,  fashioned  in  the  very  form  of  Love. 


1 88    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


A 


BEFORE  THE  TEMPLE. 

ND  desolate  she  sate  her  down 

Upon  the  marble  of  the  temple's  stair. 
You  would  have  thought  her,  with  her 

eyes  of  brown 

White  cheeks  and  hazel  hair, 
A  dryad  dreaming  there. 


A  priest  of  Bacchus  passed,  nor  stopped 
To  chide  her  ;  deeming  her — whose  chiton  hid 
But  half  her  bosom,  and  whose  girdle  dropped 

Some  grief-drowned  Bassarid, 

The  god  of  wine  had  chid. 

With  wreaths  of  woodland  cyclamen 
For  Dian's  shrine,  a  shepherdess  drew  near, 
All  her  young  thoughts  on  vestal  beauty,  when- 

She  dare  not  look  for  fear — 

Its  visible  godhead  here  ! 


BEFORE    THE    TEMPLE.  189 

Fierce  lights  on  shields  of  bossy  brass 
And  helms  of  gold,  next  from  the  hills  deploy 
Tall  youths  of  Argos.     And  she  sees  him  pass, 

Flushed  with  heroic  joy, 

On  towards  the  siege  of  Troy. 


INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


THE  DEAD  FAUN. 

r~p*HE  joys  that  touched  thee  once  be  mine  ! 
\  The  sympathies  of  sky  and  sea, 

The  friendships  of  each  rock  and  pine, 
That  made  thy  lonely  life,  ah  me  ! 
In  Tempe  or  in  Gargaphie  ! 

Such  joy  as  thou  didst  feel  when  first, 

On  some  wild  crag,  thou  stood'st  alone, 

To  watch  the  mountain  tempest  burst, 

With  streaming  thunder,  lightning-sown, 
On  Latmos  or  on  Pelion  ! 

Thy  awe  !  when,  crowned  with  vastness,  Night 
And  Silence  ruled  the  deep's  abyss  ; 

And  through  dark  leaves  thou  saw'st  the  white 
Breasts  of  the  starry  maids  who  kiss 
Pale  feet  of  moony  Artemis. 


THE  DEAD  FAUN.  igi 

Thy  dreams  !  when  breasting  matted  weeds 
Of  Arethusa,  thou  didst  hear 

The  music  of  the  wind-swept  reeds  ; 

And  down  dim  forest-ways  drew  near 
Shy  herds  of  slim  Arcadian  deer. 

Thy  wisdom  !  that  knew  naught  but  love 
And  beauty,  with  which  love  is  fraught  ; 

The  wisdom  of  the  heart — whereof 

All  noblest  passions  spring — that  thought, 
As  Nature  thinks,  "  All  else  is  naught." 

Thy  hope  !  wherein  to-morrow  set 

No  shadow  ; — hope,  that,  lacking  care 

And  retrospect,  could  not  regret, 

And  bloomed  in  rainbows  everywhere 
Of  whilom  joys  again  grown  fair. 

These  were  thine  all  :  in  all  life's  moods 
Embracing  all  of  happiness  : 

And  when  within  thy  long-loved  woods 
Didst  lay  thee  down  to  die,  no  less 
Thy  happiness  stood  by  to  bless. 


192    INTIMATIONS  OF   THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


APOLLO. 


i. 


ALL  the  Lydian  notes  revealing, 
Son  of  Leto,  oh,  come  stealing 
As  the  wind  Thessalian  rivers 
Whisper  of  !  the  wind,  that  shivers 
Every  ripple  into  stars, 
Blowing  bubble-bars  on  bars. 
Bring  the  harp  that  haunts  the  oaks, 
Wherein  melody  invokes 
Naiad  music  of  the  fount, 
Oread  music  of  the  mount ; 
And  such  Satyre  song  as  keeps 
Revel  on  Lycsean  steeps, 
When  Night  nods,  a  Maenad  shape 
Purple  with  the  staining  grape. 
Wake  the  chords  that  dewy  grounds 
Echo  when  no  mortal  hounds 


APOLLO.  193 

Bell  the  hunt,  whose  spear-point  shines 
Through  Arcadia's  tangled  vines, 
When  the  half-awakened  Dawn, 
Dreaming  on  a  mountain  lawn, 
Lets  her  golden  sandals  lie 
And  walks  bare-footed  through  the  sky  ; 
And  by  Arethusa's  bank, 
Swift  upon  the  red  hart's  flank, 
Drives  Diana's  buskined  band 
Down  the  cistus-blooming  strand. 
Then  love's  minors,  swooning  o'er 
The  mountain  hush,  the  ocean  roar, 
As  Selene,  stealing,  sails 
O'er  the  Lemnos  lakes  to  vales 
Where  Endymion  dreams  and  feels 
Love  her  stolen  kiss  reveals. 

n. 

Thou  hast  sung  of  Helicon  : 
How  the  sister  Muses  won 
From  the  nine  Pierides 
Empire  o'er  all  harmonies. 


194     INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

Thou  hast  sung  of  Tempe's  maid, 

And  the  sudden  laurel's  shade. 

Thou  hast  sung  of  classic  loves, 

In  the  temple-columned  groves, 

Where  the  marble  altar  stands 

Rose-heaped  by  the  balmy  hands 

Of  Achaian  maiden  bands  ; 

Where  the  bay-crowned  priest  lifts  up 

Wine-wet  hands  that  tilt  the  cup. 

Sung,  as  wild  Amphion  sung, 

Songs, — Parnassian  rocks, — that  swung 

Each  in  its  lyric  niche,  and  massed 

Melodious  walls  like  Thebes'.     And  last, 

Sung,  what  wrung  forth  tears  in  Hell, 

Love — no  snake-haired  Fears  could  quell. 

in. 

Ours  shall  be  no  island  song, 
Suited  to  a  maiden  throng, 
Dancing  with  their  wreaths  of  roses 
To  the  double-flute's  soft  closes  ! — 
But  a  Nation's  !  whose  large  eyes 


APOLLO. 

With  life's  liberty  are  wise, 
And  consenting  sympathies 
Of  all  arts  and  sciences. 
She  !  who  stands  above  the  storms 
With  truth's  thunders  in  her  arms, 
And  the  star-serenity 
Of  her  hope  bound  burningly 
Round  her  brow  ;  and  at  her  knee 
The  spirit  of  progress  who  is  shod 
With  ethereal  fire  of  God.     .     .     . 
Yea  !  thy  last  shall  still  be  first — 
Some  grand  epopee  to  burst 
With  such  organ  notes  as  rang 
When  the  stars  of  morning  sang, 
And  the  Sons  of  Heaven  sent 
Shoutings  through  the  firmament ; 
As  our  years  have  justified 
And  the  stars  have  prophesied. 
1886. 


196     INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 


THE   FEUD. 

ROCKS,  trees  and  rocks  ;  and  down  a  mossy 
stone 

The  murmuring  ooze  and  trickle  of  a  stream 
Of  water,  where  the  mountain  spring  lies  lone, — 
A    gleaming    cairngorm    where     the     shadows 

dream, — 
And  one  wild  road  winds  like  a  saffron  seam. 

Here  sang  the  thrush,  whose  pure,  mellifluous  note 
Dropped  golden  sweetness  on  the  fragrant  June  ; 

Here  cat-  and  blue-bird  and  wood-sparrow  wrote 
Their  presence  on  the  silence  with  a  tune  ; 

And  here  the  fox  drank  'neath  the  mountain  moon. 

Frail  ferns  and  dewy  mosses  and  dark  brush, — 

Impenetrable  briers,  deep  and  dense, 
And  wiry  bushes, — brush,  that  seemed  to  crush 


THE  FEUD.  IQ7 

The  struggling  saplings  with  its  tangle,  whence 
Sprawled  out  the  ramble  of  an  old  rail-fence. 

A  wasp  buzzed  by  ;  and  then  a  butterfly 
In  orange  and  amber,  like  a  floating  flame  ; 

And  then  a  man,  hard-eyed  and  very  sly, 

Gaunt-cheeked  and  haggard  and  a  little  lame, 

With  an  old  rifle,  down  the  mountain  came. 

He  listened,  drinking  from  a  flask  he  took 
Out  of  the  ragged  pocket  of  his  coat  ; 

Then  all  around  him  cast  a  stealthy  look  ; 

Lay  down  ;  and  watched  an  eagle  soar  and  float, 

His  fingers  hidden  in  his  hairy  throat. 

The  shades  grew  longer  ;  and  each  Cumberland 

height 
Loomed   framed   in   splendors   of    the   dolphin 

dusk. 
Around  the  road  a  horseman  rode  in  sight  ; 

Young,  tall,  blond-bearded.      Silent,  grim   and 

brusque, 
He  in  the  thicket  aimed — Quick,  harsh,  then  husk, 


198     INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

The  echoes  barked  among  the  hills  and  made 
Repeated  instants  of  the  shot's  distress  ; — 

Then  silence — and  the  trampled  bushes  swayed  ; — 
Then  silence,  packed  with  murder — and  the  press 

Of  distant  hoofs  that  galloped  riderless. 


THE  RAID.  199 


THE  RAID. 


FAR  in  the  forest,  where  the  rude  road  winds 
Through  twisted  briers  and  weeds,  stamped 

down  and  caked 
With   mountain   mire,   the  clashing  boughs  are 

raked 
Again  with  rain  whose  sobbing  frenzy  blinds. 

There  is  a  noise  of  winds  ;  a  gasp  and  gulp 
Of  swollen  torrents  ;  and  the  sodden  smell 
Of  woodland  soil,  dead  trees — that  long  since 
fell 

Among  the  moss — red-rotted  into  pulp. 

Fogged  by  the  rain,  far  up  the  mountain  glen, 
Deep  in  the  dark,  an  elfish  wisp  of  light  ; 
And  stealthy  shadows  stealing  through  the  night 

With  strong,  set  faces  of  determined  men. 


2OO     INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

II. 

'Twixt  fog  and  fire,  in  pomps  of  chrysoprase, 
Above  vague  peaks,  the  morning  hesitates 
Ere,  o'er  the  threshold  of  her  golden  gates, 

Her  chariot  speeds  the  splendor  of  its  rays. 

A  gleaming  glimmer  in  the  sun-speared  mist, 
A  cataract,  reverberating,  falls  : 
Upon  a  pine  a  gray  hawk  sits  and  calls, 

Then  soars  away,  no  bigger  than  the  fist. 

Along  the  wild  path,  through  the  oaks  and  firs,— 
Rocks,  where  the  rattler  coils  itself  and  suns,— 
Big-booted,  belted,  and  with  twinkling  guns, 

The  posse  marches  with  three  moonshiners. 


DEAD  MAN'S  RUN.  2OI 


DEAD    MAN'S    RUN. 

HE  rode  adown  the  autumn  wood, 
A  man  dark-eyed  and  brown  ; 
A  mountain  girl  before  him  stood 
Clad  in  a  homespun  gown. 

"  To  ride  this  road  is  death  for  you  ! 

My  father  waits  you  there  ; 
My  father  and  my  brother,  too. — 

You  know  the  oath  they  swear." 

He  holds  her  by  one  berry-brown  wrist, 
And  by  one  berry-brown  hand  ; 

And  he  hath  laughed  at  her  and  kissed 
Her  cheek  the  sun  hath  tanned. 

"  The  feud  is  to  the  death,  sweetheart ; 

But  forward  will  I  ride." 
"  And  if  you  ride  to  death,  sweetheart, 

My  place  is  at  your  side." 


2O2     IN  TIM  A  TIONS  OF  THE  SEA  UTIFUL. 

Low  hath  he  laughed  again  and  kissed 
And  helped  her  with  his  hand  ; 

And  they  have  rode  into  the  mist 
That  belts  the  autumn  land. 

And  they  had  passed  by  Devil's  Den, 
And  come  to  Dead  Man's  Run, 

When  in  the  brush  rose  up  two  men, 
Each  with  a  levelled  gun. 

"  Down,  down  !  my  sister  !  "  cries  the  one  ;- 
She  gives  the  reins  a  twirl ; — 

The  other  shouts,  "  He  shot  my  son  ! 
And  now  he  steals  my  girl !  " 

The  rifles  crack  :  she  will  not  wail : 

He  will  not  cease  to  ride  : 
But,  oh  !  her  face  is  pale,  is  pale, 

And  the  red  blood  stains  her  side. 

"  Sit  fast,  sit  fast  by  me,  sweetheart ! 

The  road  is  rough  to  ride  !  " — 
The  road  is  rough  by  gulch  and  bluff, 

And  her  hair  blows  wild  and  wide. 


DEAD  MAN'S  RUN.  2O$ 

"  Sit  fast,  sit  fast  by  me,  sweetheart  ! 

The  bank  is  steep  to  ride  !  " — 
The  bank  is  steep  for  a  strong  man's  leap, 

And  her  eyes  are  staring  wide. 

"  Sit  fast,  sit  fast  by  me,  sweetheart ! 

The  Run  is  swift  to  ride  !  " 
The  Run  is  swift  with  mountain  drift, 

And  she  sways  from  side  to  side. 

Is  it  a  wash  of  the  yellow  moss, 

Or  a  drift  of  the  autumn's  gold, 
The  mountain  torrent  foams  across 

For  the  dead  pine's  roots  to  hold  ? 

Is  it  the  bark  of  the  sycamore, 

Or  bark  of  the  white  birch-tree, 
The  mountaineer  on  the  other  shore 

Hath  followed  and  still  can  see  ? 

No  mountain  moss  or  leaves,  my  heart ! 

No  bark  of  birchen  gray  ! — 
Young  hair  of  gold  and  a  face  death-cold 

The  wild  stream  sweeps  away. 


204     INTIMA  T10NS  OF  THE  BE  A  UTIFUL. 


THE  MOONSHINER. 

HOW  long  we  had  lain  and  had  listened ! 
Where  the  trees  let  in  winks  of  the  sun, 
Ere  their  gun-barrels  glittered  and  glistened 

In  the  gully  below  by  the  run  ! 
We  had  watched  all  the  night  and  the  morning — 

And  our  limbs  stoven  stiff  with  the  chill 
Of  the  dew  ;  but  my  Lise  had  the  warning, 

And  we  knew  all  was  up  with  the  still 
If  we  ever  gave  over  our  waiting, 

The  four  of  us :     I  and  Bud  Roe, 
Two  Tollivers — hated  and  hating — 

And  the  posse  nigh  twenty  or  so. 

The  evening  before  we  had  reckoned 

Their  men  would  ride  up  through  the  glen  ; 

And  it  took  little  more  than  a  second 
To  say  how  we  'd  manage  it  then  : 


THE  MOONSHINER.  2O$ 

For  the  valley  wound  up  like  an  alley, 

Built  blind  with  steep  bluffs,  and  no  trees 
At  the  bottom  ;  the  rest  of  the  valley 

Scrub  bush  that  just  reached  to  the  knees. 
With  me  and  one  Tolliver  watching 

In  front,  and  Bud  Roe  in  the  gap 
With  a  Tolliver — danger  of  botching  ? — 

Them  jumbled  like  rats  in  a  trap  ! 

So  we  all  took  a  pull  at  the  bottle 

Lise  brought  me  that  morning  ;  and  though 
We  had  eaten,  nor  left  what  would  throttle 

An  ant,  we  were  hungry,  I  know, — 
For  the  other,  as  hungry  as  quiet ! 

For  the  first  of  the  gang  had  n't  reached 
The  gully,  or  hardly  passed  by  it, 

When    a    wild -hawk  —  they    thought    it  —  had 

screeched. 
When  a  pewee  had  whistled,  we  knew  it 

The  signal  the  posse  were  in, 
Every  man  of  them.     Well,  they  would  do  it ! 

And  we — well,  we  had  to  begin  ! 


206     INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

A  pistol  each  side  and  a  rifle 

Or  two  ready  loaded.     Our  height 
Would  leave  me  to  aim  just  a  trifle 

To  left  and  my  pard  to  the  right. 
And  we  lay  in  the  rocks,  never  winking, 

Just  ready. — I  heard  the  dry  buzz 
Of  the  grasshoppers  ;  thinking  and  thinking 

How  solemn  and  silent  it  was  : 
When  sudden, — I  raised  in  a  hurry, — 

The  laurel  whipped  back — I  could  curse  ! — 
Lise  could  n't  get  rid  of  her  worry, 

And  had  to  come  there — for  the  worse  ! 

Just  then  through  the  gully  and  thicket 

The  heads  of  their  horses  and  stocks 
O'  the  Winchesters.— Click  of  the  cricket? 

Or  cocking  of  guns  in  the  rocks  ? — 
We  waited  until  the  last  came  in. 

I  lined  on  the  sheriff  and  said 
"  Shoot  !  "  hoarsely  ;  and  ushered  the  game  in 

With  the  sheriff  and  deputy  dead. 
Some  down  ;  and  the  other  ones — very 


THE  MOONSHINER.  2QJ 

Much  taken  with  terror — rode  back  ; 
Then  the  two  in  the  gap  made  it  merry 
With  death-dealing  crack  upon  crack. 

And  back  to  the  open  with  frightened 

Wild  faces  the  rest  :  and  again 
The  guns  at  our  shoulders  were  tightened  : 

They  spurred  on  us  loosening  the  rein. 
They  were  cornered  :  they  saw  it  :  and  grimly 

They  turned  on  their  death  ;  and  I  leant 
With  my  gun  on  the  rocks,  and  saw  dimly 

They  rode  at  us  shooting,  and  went 
Through  the  smoke  for  the  thick  of  our  fire  : 

Then  Lise,  who  was  loading  my  gun, 
Screamed  something  and  jumped — and  a  wire 

Of  blood  down  her  face  :  she  was  done. 

There  were  six  of  them  left,  but  a  baby 

Could  have  done  for  me  then,  with  her  dead 

In  the  stead  of  myself  !  And  it  may  be 
The  two  of  us  there  had  eat  lead, 

If  Bud  had  n't  come  with  the  other — 


208     INTIMATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL. 

The  three  were  enough  for  the  rest, 
Dying  hard  as  they  did  ! — I  would  bother 

With  nothing,  my  hand  on  her  breast, 
Till  they  led  me  away,  and  together 

Brought  her  to  the  still  with  the  shot 
In  her  brow. — But  the  buzzards  will  feather 

And  roost  on  the  rest  where  they  rot  ! 
" 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA   LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

Books  not  returned  on  time  are  subject  to  a  fine  of 
50c  per  volume  after  the  third  day  overdue,  increasing 
to  $1.00  per  volume  after  the  sixth  day.  Books  not  in 
demand  may  be  renewed  if  application  is  made  before 
expiration  of  loan  period. 


50w-7,'16 


BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


